


Witch Doctor

by Practicalsome



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Humor, Kidnapping, Profiling, Supernatual Beings, Team as Family, does not adhere to canon timelines
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:02:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 47,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26159944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Practicalsome/pseuds/Practicalsome
Summary: Garcia had decided that the most terrifying cases involve child killers or delusional fanatics. Then came the case where the child killer was supernatural, and the delusional fanatics were the Winchester brothers.When members of the BAU happen to get in the way of their investigation, the Winchester brothers have to flee, taking the agents and a honesty curse with them. They didn't expect to need the agents help breaking the curse.When Hotch and Reid get kidnapped by the serial killing Winchesters, they were prepared to do everything to survive. They didn’t expect everything to include family dinners or gambling in Las Vegas.
Comments: 199
Kudos: 566





	1. Chapter 1

Garcia had decided that of all the cases the BAU received, child killers were the worst. Today only confirmed that. She had walked into the office with a chirped hello that died when she saw Hotch’s face. His normally impassive expression carried a tension that only appeared for a specific kind of case.

“Last night, a third child was taken from Westerlies, Illinois,” he said, speed walking with her to the affectionately dubbed round table. The others were gathered there, looking through the provided files. Each was relying heavily on their caffeine of choice after the call came in the early hours of the morning.

“Will Larson, age ten, last seen hunting squirrels on the neighbor’s farm. The owner said he chased him off around eight and saw the boy head down the road toward his house,” JJ said. Halfway through, she broke into a coughing fit that had the others looking at her in concern and Reid inching away in his chair.

“Sorry,” JJ brushed it off, “The father reported him missing the next morning, after calling his friend's parents to see how he was doing. Apparently Will spent the night with them frequently.” She sneezed, and huddled further into her oversized sweater. It was nothing like the pantsuits the team was familiar with.

“JJ, are you feeling alright,” Reid and Morgan asked, speaking over each other. On closer inspection her eyes were red and she was leaning heavily on her chair.

“I was planning to go home after giving everyone the briefing. I only started feeling ill this morning,” she said. 

“I can take over for you,” Garcia said, “go get some sleep.” She didn’t normally volunteer, but time was of the essence and JJ was very clearly not doing well.

JJ glanced at Hotch, then got up, clutching the back of the chair. “Let me know if there is anything I can do.” She moved out of the room, coughing as she went. 

The room was quiet, so Garcia started talking. “Anywho, Westerlies is a teeny, tiny town, like I-need-a-magnifying-glass-to-see-it small. The population barely breaks eight hundred and the remote location means no one wants to go there. Seriously, the road there isn’t even paved the entire way. Their main attractions are a yearly talent show and a museum on the pre-columbus americas.”

“So it was probably someone in the area,” Morgan said. “Why weren’t we called in sooner?” When there was still a chance to save the second child, Garcia added in her head. Around her, her team was completing the same sentence. She decided to move on.

“The other two children were found a few days after their disappearance, each a month apart. One at the bottom of an abandoned well, the other dumped by a river, not a drop of water in his lungs.” Garcia shuddered. “The timing was suspicious but they didn’t make the connection until the coroner said both children were missing well over half their blood.”

“He’s taking their blood?” Rossi asked, pushing his cup of pomegranate tea further away from him, appetite lost.

“We think so, yes,” Garcia said, discreetly layering her many windows to cover the gory photos in the report. She could study the photos if there was a reason, but just letting them sit there was dificult.

“Countess Elizabeth Bathory believed that bathing in the blood of young girls would restore her youth. She was documented to have killed hundreds before she was caught,” Reid said. 

“The unsub didn’t take enough blood for that,” Hotch said.

“And I’m out! I’ll take that as my cue to leave,” Garcia said, trying not to picture how much blood it would take to fill a bathtub. A standard bathtub can hold about eighty gallons, and an adult has about one and a half gallons and. Garcia cut herself off.

“Wait, Garcia,” Rossi said. “Do you still have your go bag?”

“Yes,” Garcia answered, “but Westerlies doesn’t have any computer systems worth speaking of.”

“Which is why you are coming with us,” Hotch said. “I want you onsite for this one. We don’t have much time. Wheels up in twenty.”

Garcia went to pack her go bag, because the parka from the last time she’d packed it just wouldn’t work. Not for spring weather.

~~~~~

Three things about Westerlies were immediately apparent. First, everyone knew about the murders. Secondly, the town hall was vastly unequal to the influx of law enforcement who’d set up a station there. All the more so because Westerlies didn’t have a police force of their own. And thirdly, not one of the people there knew what to make of her.

“If you will follow me, miss—ma’am—agent,” Officer Stark, the local officer, trailed off, looking at Garcia’s plush unicorn go bag. It matched the feather earrings and fuzzy sandals she was wearing.

“Call me Penelope. Now take me to your leader,” Garcia said, looking around the tiny building. The hall was occupied by the BAU and officers alike, while the mayor’s office along the wall held Will’s father. 

“My leader?” Officer Stark asked, looking around her for help.

“Your computer system,” Garcia explained, feeling the time slipping past them.

“We don’t have a computer system, but I can get you Mayor Stanston’s laptop if you need,” Officer Stark said. 

“It’s okay, I brought my own,” Garcia said.

“Your own laptop?” Officer Stark asked.

“My own computer system. Do you have somewhere I can set it up?” Garcia asked. The officer sputtered and pointed at the mostly clear end of a folding table. The other side was dotted with food for the taskforce. None of it appetizing. Next to the table was a single lonely outlet.

“Right next to the coffee, perfect,” Garcia said, a near physical wave of perkiness that stood at odds with the frustration of the room at large. It wasn’t perfect, but saying that wouldn’t get her a better desk.

Across the room, a whiteboard had been reappropriated from the nearest school, half the county away. The agents were standing there, half facing the rest of the room as they adjusted to working in front of an audience. It was a bit like having several strangers watching you brush your teeth. Not something to worry about, but it didn’t exactly feel nice.

Rossi was the least visibly affected as he taped each picture to the board. “Jake Michaelson, age nine, was found in an abandoned well a month ago, nine hours after he went missing. Joshua Davis, age fourteen, was found a week ago, was missing for at least twenty hours before he was dumped at the edge of a river to die. Will Larson, age seven, was taken on his way home last night.”

“I don’t see any sign of a type,” Reid said, “The first was blonde, but the later two were brunette. And the age range extends from childhood into adolescence.”

“Joshua and Jack were good kids, never got into any trouble, and Will, he never meant nobody no harm,” a man said, moving up to stand by Hotch. “None of them did nothing to deserve this.”

Morgan moved forward, and let his bulk send the man drifting back a step. “We know, sir.”

“There was no sign of sexual assault, correct?” Hotch asked, turning to look at the coroner.

“No sign,” the coroner said. He too was unhappy with the gathered crowd. 

“However there was evidence that the shirts on the boys were removed,” Officer Stark said, moving away from Garcia.

“Do you know why?” Reid asked, looking up from a map speckled with thumbtacks. From the lack of a clear shape, Garcia assumed the geographic profile would not be much help, not when a two minute drive covered the town proper.

“We think it was so he could, ah, reach the skin with his knife,” the coroner said. “No fingerprints though, so he either wore gloves or had the boys do it themselves,” he paused. “Taking the shirts off, not the cutting, to be clear.”

At that someone in the audience gave a moan, and Garcia saw a man, well built with laugh lines running across his face, start forward. Officer Stark moved to cut him off. “Mr. Larson, please, there is no need for you to listen to this.”

“I can’t just sit somewhere, waiting and waiting without knowing nothing the whole time,” Mr. Larson protested, looking at the agents with the feral cousin of hope. “Let me help.”

“Morgan, Garcia, would you go interview the father,” Hotch said, gesturing towards the mayor’s office. Garcia nodded, looking at her ramshackle wall of monitors with a wince. There was not nearly enough space here. The outlet had been daisy chained into five times the number of plugs, but it was still overcrowded.

“If you would follow us,” Morgan said. Leading the way into the miniscule office. He promptly had to stop, or else he would have run into the desk that dominated the space. It was as out of place as a king-sized canopy in a dorm room.

Morgan shuffled sideways to reach his seat, Garcia following him. Mr. Larson was left to sit in the mayor’s chair. A fact he was too distracted to appreciate.

“Has anyone shown an unusual interest in your son, in the past month or so,” Morgan asked.

“I don’t think so. But I gave him that damned BB gun two weeks ago. I’ve had a few neighbors come to me about that, but they were more annoyed by the noise than anything else,” Larson said, “Why? Do you think someone here did it?”

“We are just trying to look at all the options,” Morgan said, shifting in his chair. 

“Have you noticed anyone from out of town who might have interacted or seemed unusually interested in any of the boys in some way?” Garcia asked.

“Just the reservoir inspectors. They wanted to know about the boys -were worried that the bodies were too close to the water or summat,” Larson said. His voice broke on as he said the word bodies.

“Inspectors?” Morgan asked, glancing at Garcia. Garcia of course, had already slid her laptop free and was typing faster than the eye could follow. 

“From up north of here. ‘Perently they heard about the deaths, and decided to come down and harass the families with questions.” Larson shrugged.

“Can you describe them?” Morgan asked.

“Didn’t see them myself, but Jannet, Jannet Farlet, told me the two were too pretty to be inspectors. Tall as well. Drove an older car. It still looked brand new, ‘perently. Didn’t worry about them too much, they left soon as she asked.” Larson answered. He was perched on the edge of his seat, head turned as if to hear behind him. 

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Larson,” Garcia said. “We will be sure to let you know if we learn something new.”

She stood, and left, laptop cradled in her arms. Morgan squeezed out after her, closing the door in a weak attempt to protect the man inside.

“What?” he asked.

“There haven’t been any inspectors sent to Westerlies in over a decade,” Garcia said. “And the boy’s deaths haven’t been reported outside the local paper. Not one paper has even suggested the deaths are related.”

~~~~~~~

The team had eventually found a chance to talk alone. It entailed sending every officer out with one of the locals hanging around to check the roads for unfamiliar cars and asking the remainder to find some lunch. Reid had gone with the coroner to examine the body.

“This makes no sense,” Rossi said. “The unsub takes the kid, with no signs of a struggle, only to cut them open a few hours later. He takes some of their blood, but the amount varies. One boy died of blood loss, but the second had only minor cuts and the cause of death was hypothermia from the muddy riverbank.”

“That’s a de-escalation of violence,” Hotch said.

“He is also holding each boy for a longer period of time before doing anything,” Rossi said. “But the disposals are less involved each time. He had to carry Jake over a mile to the well, but Joshua was dumped right off the road. Only a few feet away from the river and he was left alive.”

“Joshua was significantly bigger than Jake,” Morgan said, “What if our unsub couldn’t carry him that far. There were deep drag marks at that site as well.”

“There is absolutely no evidence on any of the bodies, which shouldn’t be possible. No ligaments on the wrists, no fingerprints or DNA, not even any tracks near the well,” Garcia added, from behind her wall of monitors. “Even the hair you’d expect from family or pets is missing. Which, I want to add, is about as likely as guessing someone’s password on the first try. Less likely.”

“That would suggest that the unsub is organized, but the abductions were a result of simple opportunity. I think we are looking for a local in his late twenties to thirties, slight, probably appears harmless, but his friends have noticed he tends to lie or mistreat animals,’ Rossi said.

Morgan coughed. “What about the reservoir inspectors?”

“No one saw them until a few days ago, they got here too late to be responsible for the earlier murders. Also, if there were multiple unsubs I would expect an escalation, or at least the bodies to be hidden better,” Hotch said. “But we’ll keep an eye out for them. Garcia, have you found anything online about the murders?”

“Sir!” Garcia jumped up, waiting for her mind to catch up to what had been said. “Oh, yes, I’ve found a few things. And by a few things, I mean I found lots of things and searched through them for the good stuff.”

“Like?” Hotch asked. He was smiling, faint but noticeable, and Garcia eased up on her exaggerated act. 

“There’s a website, witchwatchers.com, that talks about the deaths in detail. One of the kids here must help run it. It talks a lot about the bad luck of the town, blaming it on a witch. Warts and pool algae and animals taking ill the day before State Fair,” Garcia said.

“Can you trace who wrote it,” Morgan asked.

“Sweetheart, your lack of faith in me is disappointing,” Garcia drew out the word. “I traced it to the school, which explains the writing style.”

“Writing style?” Rossi asked.

“The post starts with ‘What’s up my dudes?”

“Ah,” Rossi nodded. And changed the subject. “When is Reid supposed to get back?”

“Right now,” said Morgan, with a grin and gesture to the door.

Rossi turned to look at the empty doorway. He turned back to Morgan and raised an eyebrow.

“Um,” Morgan looked down at his phone, where Garcia could see a new text from Reid. Here.

The door opened, revealing Officer Stark reassuring Reid. “It’s okay, one of the kids put the pull sign up there as a prank, and every time we take it off, another one shows up a few days later.”

“Got in a fight with the door?” Rossi asked.

“How was I supposed to know to push the door that says pull?” Reid replied.

“What did you find?” Hotch cut in.

“The unsub didn’t care about the boys. He thinks of them as sources of blood, the cuts were placed to get the most blood in the least amount of time, not to cause the most pain,” Reid said, looking awkwardly at Garcia. 

“I’m going to go over there,” Garcia said. She went back to her computers. She may still be able to hear what was being said, but she didn’t have to see the pictures of the boys while listening.

“Why is he picking boys, if it doesn’t matter to him?” Morgan asked.

“It may just be convenience, girls tend to group together, while boys are more prone to wandering alone,” Reid said. “What I want to know is why children? If it’s just about blood, adults would make more sense.”

“We need to find out what he’s doing with the blood,” Hotch said. “It could be part of a psychosis, which-”  
Rossi cut him off, “-would be bad.”

“That may actually explain why he’s targeting children,” Reid said. “Children have historically been viewed as the ultimate form of innocence, of humanity unburdened by evil. The unsub may believe that their blood is special.”

“Special as in powerful or special as in will absolve him of his own evils,” Rossi said. 

“Special as in powerful, I would say,” Reid said. “If he was using them to fix his perceived flaws he would treat their bodies respectfully. Like they were valuable. And the killings would happen faster. The unsub let one kid die of exposure, he doesn’t care what happens after he gets the blood.”

“Still think this is about bathing in blood?” Rossi asked.

“No, he would have drained all of their blood in that case, and the abductions would be closer together. I think this is more of a sacrifice, he thinks he’s using the blood as a tool for something.”

“Any idea what?” Morgan asked.

“I don’t know. Actually, the knife used to make the cuts was unusual. The blade was dull, and had a jagged edge. The coroner found flakes of obsidian in the cuts. It seems like it was homemade, but obsidian isn’t found around here,” Reid said.

“Ritual blade, blood sacrifice, are we sure this isn’t a satanic ritual?” Hotch asked.

“Those are just an urban legend, satanic sacrifices have never actually occurred in the US,” Reid said. “Besides, they are generally described as having a beautiful virgin sacrifice, not young boys.” 

“Fair enough. We are looking for a slight, delusional man who owns an obsidian knife, then?” Morgan asked.

“Do you mean an ixcuac?” Officer Stark asked. The agents turned, blinking at the officer Garcia had forgotten was there.

“Ixcuac?” asked Hotch.

“The ritual blade the Aztecs used for sacrifices,” Officer Stark said.

“That might be it,” Rossi asked. “Forgive me, but how do you know that?”

“Anyone in town could tell you about that, our museum has an exhibit on the Aztec Empire. Had it since before I was born,” Officer Stark said. She shrugged as if to brush the oddity of such a museum in a town so small she had to commute to the nearest police station.

Garcia brought up the museum's website. It was rough, clearly made by someone inexperienced with computers. She scrolled through, getting glimpses of the building. It looked like someone had converted a farm into a museum. The barn, house, and even the chicken coop were used as a backdropped for exhibits that looked as if they belonged in a state of the art facility. There was a display of spanish gold protected only by a fence of chicken wire.

“Reid,” she called, as she found a series of photos detailing knife after obsidian knife. “Is this what you meant?”

Everyone gathered behind Garcia. Reid studied the screen. “That looks almost exactly right. Officer Stark, who owns the museum?”

“The town owns it, technically,” said Officer Stark, “but most of the exhibits belong to Jannet Farlet. Her uncle used to work in artifacts, and when he died, she decided she would rather see it sit in a museum than her home. Quiet lady, always traveling to visit friends.”

“We’ll need to see her home,” Hotch said. “Officer Stark, would you see about informing the others to keep an eye out for anyone driving her car, a-” he paused and looked at Garcia.

“Red Chevy pickup,” she said, not missing a beat. It was the kind of car that would be a dime a dozen in this area. 

“Right. Meanwhile, Reid and I will check her house, and Morgan and Rossi will search the museum. Garcia, can you coordinate?”

“Can birds fly?” Garcia asked, already reaching for her headset. This was something she could do.

“Actually, birds like emu or penguins can’t fly,” Reid said. 

Garcia looked up in mock outrage. “Are you calling me a penguin?”

“No,” Reid said. “Although I would like to point out that some penguins are fast, they can swim at twenty two miles per hour.”

“Nice save,” Morgan said. Rossi jangled his set of keys at the man, earning a grimace. Morgan pulled his own keys out, and tossed them at Reid, who fumbled to catch them.

“Careful, pretty boy,” Morgan said. Officer Stark looked between the two, an odd expression on her face. Morgan didn’t seem to notice.

“I learned to drive in Las Vegas, you know,” Reid said. “I’m probably a better driver than anyone here except Rossi.”

“Thank you,” Rossi said with a small smile and a jerk of his head. Reid swung the keys in an elaborate figure eight around his finger and turned to Hotch.

“Shall we go?” he asked. He was already wearing the kevlar vest the BAU wore in the field. “If Morgan’s not driving, then we won’t have as much time if we want to catch up to them at the museum.” 

There was a moment of silence as everyone present processed the insult.

“Oh, it’s on,” Morgan said. “Garcia, sugar, can you send us the route?” Officer Stark glanced at Garcia, then Morgan, then Reid. Her cheeks went pink.

“Sure can, handsome,” Garcia purred. She turned to another laptop and started typing. The agents moved towards the doors.

~~~~~~~~~~

Officer Stark wandered over to Garcia, once the others had left. “Are you all together?” she asked. Her face was red and she couldn’t quite meet Garcia’s eyes.

“Nope.” Garcia laughed. “Morgan is just fond of pet names,” she added as she went through some very illegal channels and programs that would see her lose her job, if not her place outside prison. It was a twenty minute drive, the program should finish in fifteen.

So absorbed was she, she didn’t notice when Officer Stark left the room.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ten minutes later, Garcia’s phone rang. It was not the normal ringtone, the dull alert had long since been banished from her phone. Nor was it the rendition of “I’m so sexy” that she had set for Morgan.

Instead, Reid’s voice, saying “Garcia,” in a drawn out whine came from her phone. With no way of knowing she was recording, he had come to regret allowing her to hear him try to talk her into going as his cosplay’s best friend.

The rest of the team had been far more cautious after learning of Reid’s fate, and the only other clip she had was of Rossi. His version of whining was harsher, more a desperate plea than anything else. Rossi could rival Reid with his need for coffee some days. Garcia considered herself lucky he had never tried to call her while she was in the same room.

But it was Reid calling her now. “Your source of all knowledge and wisdom is here. Speak.”

“Garcia. Can you add the others to the call?” Hotch asked, the sound of a car door slamming coming through her earpiece. He was speaking quickly.

“Done and done. What’s wrong?” Garcia asked, adding the other two to the call. 

“You’re not at the museum are you?” Reid asked.

“No, we are about eight minutes away. Why?” Rossi asked.

“We’re at the house,” Reid said. “It’s Farlet, we found ziplock bags of blood in her fridge.”

“Ziplock bags?” Garcia mouthed, memories of storing wine the same way losing their nostalgic college glow.

Hotch cut in then. “She’s not here now, but the front door was wide open. The truck is missing, and indoors in a bloodbath. Will’s hoodie was on a chair.”

Reid interrupted. “We think someone else made the connection and came after her here. She must have been prepared, there’s a good sized smear of blood on the floor, with a women’s footprints walking through. A child’s footprints as well.” The sound of an engine starting came through the phone. “It looked like Will was dragged out the door.”

“You think she went to the museum?” Rossi asked. “With the kid?” 

“We think so,” Hotch said. “There were bullet holes in the walls. Garcia do any of the locals know what is going on?”

“Only Officer Stark and she…” Garcia looked around. “...isn’t here. Wait, what size bullets?”

“What?” Morgan asked.

“From a shotgun,” Reid cut in, talking over Hotch’s noise of surprise. “Not law enforcement.”

“We’re here,” Rossi said. “Two cars in the lot.”

“Two minutes away,” Hotch said. “Go in, we still don’t know why she brought the kid.”

“Going in,” Morgan said. 

“Do you know where the Aztec exhibit is?” Rossi asked, over the crashing sound of a door giving way.

Garcia consulted the website. “It’s not on the website.” Unsaid went the idea that in small downs, people didn’t bother with security footage or mapping their landmarks.

“Well, can you tell us-” 

What Rossi wanted her to tell them would have to wait, as without so much as a burst of static, both Rossi and Morgan were dropped from the call. The beep of the alert echoed in Garcia’s ears.

“Something’s wrong,” she whispered. “Rossi and Morgan lost contact.”

“We see their car,” Hotch said. “Don’t worry Garcia, well find them.”

“Be careful,” Garcia said, only for her words to be interrupted by another beep as the line went dead.

“No, no, no,” Garcia said, closing windows almost as soon as she had opened them. “Not now, you stupid piece of junk.”

The list of possibilities was short. Either someone had intentionally blocked phone usage, or an inexplicable loss of energy had depleted the network. Garcia had seen that happen once, when someone had made the mistake of swimming too close to a cell tower in a thunderstorm.  
Garcia tried every trick she knew, and a few that she invented on the spot, but it was like the phones had died. Nothing worked. She was left looking at scrolling lines of code, earpiece silent, miles away from being able to help.

As if to apologize, the program she had opened so much earlier chimed. A window opened across her screen, showing a fuzzy black picture.

The inside of Morgan’s back pocket. Was it illegal to grab the feeds from someone’s phone? Yes. Was anyone going to find out? No.

She also had audio. Each noise had her forgetting to breath. Every call of clear, from Morgan or a distant Rossi, was precious, but also terrible, as Garcia waited for the streak to end.

It ended, as things so often do, with the sound of gunfire. Distant gunfire, thankfully. Garcia could hear Morgan’s tread speed up. She could hear Rossi join him as they went to investigate.

She heard what must have been a screen door bang open and Rossi saying, “there” before Morgan inhaled.

“She’s got the kid. And the knife,” Morgan said, and through the speaker Garcia heard him fire. Once. Then she heard a kid crying less than a foot from Morgan’s phone and wondered when that had become a sound she wanted to hear.

~~~~~~~~

It turned out Officer Stark had gone to watch Larson, in case he had heard what was happening. He had. Garcia stood up from her computers to see the two standing there, both intent on their opposing desires. Larson looked about to walk right over the officer to get to Will.

“It’s over, Officer Stark, we found Will,” Garcia said. And because she could, she continued. “Could you drive me over to the museum?”

“You’re taking me as well,” Larson said, face so painfully open and hopeful that Garcia could only nod.

The drive was quick, and if they broke a few speed limits, well, that’s what police cars are for. They pulled up on the opposite side as the agents, all phone lines having righted themselves in time for Rossi to call and tell her the kid was safe and they were in the barn at the back of the lot.

Larson beat Garcia out of the car, but only because his legs were longer. “Will,” he called, running through the barn doorway. Garcia followed him.

Inside, Will is sobbing, shaking as he wrapped himself around a flustered Morgan. That changed when he saw his father. The two met in the middle of the barn, bits of shattered glass and a bloody knife laying off to one side as they hugged. Everyone around them had ceased to matter.

Garcia hurried to Morgan and Rossi, the latter of whom was pinning a struggling figure to the ground. Farlet was holding one of her arms stiffly, partially answering Garcia’s questions about the gunshot she heard.

“What happened?” she asked Morgan.

“We heard a gun fire, went to investigate, saw Farlet catch the kid and try to slice his arm open. I shot her in the shoulder and the kid came running,” Morgan said, watching Garcia’s face.

“She deserved far worse,” was Garcia’s verdict. Beyond them, Will was calming down, moulded against his father. His sobbing was replaced by hiccups as the agents watched.

“She was shot twice,” Rossi interrupted. “It looks like whoever attacked dealt as good as they got. It went straight through her forearm. Did you find out where Officer Stark was?”

“It wasn’t her, she was watching Mr. Larson in the office the whole time,” Garcia said, seeing the woman standing in the corner of the barn, ignored by the other occupants of the barn. She looked hurt, finding out that she had been suspected.

Garcia paused then, and in the moderate temperature of the barn, she shivered, thoughts fighting to catch up with instinct. Something was very, very wrong.

“Where are Hotch and Reid?” she asked. “They got here just after you.”

“We haven’t seen them,” Rossi said. Turning to Morgan he waited to be proven wrong. 

“I thought they were still on their way,” Morgan admitted. He looked at Garcia and Rossi, as if waiting for the others to appear.

From where she lay on the floor, Jannet Farlet began to laugh.


	2. Chapter 2

**Earlier that week. ******

********

Sam looked up from where he had squeezed his legs under the motel desk. “I found a hunt,” he said. He did not sound happy.

****

Dean grunted, not looking up from where he was bent over, examining the innards of the dead heating unit. It was spring, but the nights were still unpleasantly chilly.

****

“Small town in Illinois, kids are disappearing and they show up missing their blood,” Sam said. “I found a website that documents a series of bad luck before that.”

****

“Omens or a vampire?” Dean asked. 

****

“No crows or out of season thunderstorms. Nothing but two kids getting taken,” Sam said. “And get this, the second kid wasn’t killed, just left to die.”

****

“Sounds like something too arrogant to worry about what the humans could find. I would say vampire,” Dean said as Sam frowned. 

****

“Going after kids?” Sam asked. “That doesn’t sound right. This is going after kids specifically, which means-”

****

“We’re looking for a rare monster.” Dean frowned, reaching for his father’s journal. 

****

“Or something,” Sam muttered. He failed to elaborate. 

****

Dean slapped the aged heater. It gave a protesting sputter, and failed to start. “What are you waiting for? Start packing, Sammy,” he said. “We can find out what it is once we get there.”

****

“Start packing yourself,” Sam said with a nod at the array of flannel and guns that lay spread across his brother’s bed. Dean smirked and didn’t move.

****

Sam chucked a pair of dirty underwear at his head. Then he pulled his duffle onto the bed and slid the zipper open. 

****

Almost as soon as the zipper tag was touched, a hissing noise began to emanate from the bag. The bag had already opened a bit and a strand of pure white something shot out. 

****

It covered Sam like webbing, more added to the mess as Sam abandoned his duffle in favor of protecting his eyes. Soon he was coated in the stuff, looking like someone had wrapped him up in a garland of, very sticky, snow. 

****

“Ha, karma,” Dean said, waving the underwear like a flag. Then he realized what he was waving and tossed them to the floor with a curled lip. Across the room the hissing sound began to die, while Sam looked to Dean with what resembled a baring of teeth more than a smile. 

****

“Silly string? Really, Dean?” Sam pulled a clod off his shirt and looked at it as gravity pulled it off his fingers and onto the carpet. The next bit was flung, a perfect shot into Dean’s bag. 

****

“Hey,” Dean snapped. He scooped it back out and looked prepared to throw before pausing. “Nevermind, I’ll get you back properly.”

****

“We’re not restarting the prank war,” Sam said. He’d removed most of the string, but his hair would need a shower before it could be considered clean. 

****

Dean grinned. And with a sweep of his arm, the mess of guns and flannel was dumped into his bag. in desperate straits. 

****

“Damn right we are,” Dean said. “But no touching Baby this time.”

****

“We’ll see,” Sam said, watching as Dean’s face lost a shade of color. 

****

The dirty underwear all but flew across the room.

****

****

~~~~~~~~~~~

****

****

For all the time Sam spent in the car, one would assume he liked road trips. That was not the case. Cars were acceptable in that they were fast and luggage did not need to be hand-carried. They were to be tolerated because options were limited. Most buses would not allow anyone with guns or bloodstains to go anywhere but the police station.

****

“White horse,” Sam said, breaking the silence. He punched Dean in the shoulder. Hard. The car swerved into the empty lane on the other side of the road, forcing his brother to pull hard on the steering wheel.

****

“Dude,” Dean said, “seriously?” The you want to play children’s games was heavily implied. 

****

“We’re almost there,” Sam said. Indeed, after three days of driving, they were pulling off the highway and onto a little used road, more of a country lane. The white horse looked up from its grazing, as if wondering why a car might want to go down that old road.

****

“Plan of attack is we take a look around, see if we find anything, talk to the families, and if we don’t find anything, keep our eyes on it for another three weeks or so,” Dean said.

****

“Three weeks?” Sam asked.

****

“The boys were taken a month apart, right, so they were taken when the moon was around new both times.” Dean said. “Could be nothing.”

****

“This case doesn’t make any sense. Monsters don’t waste their energy, so why leave enough blood in the boy he could have survived?” Sam asked, “Do you think this is the human kind of crazy?”

****

“You think it is?” Dean looked up from the road. 

****

“I don’t know,” Sam said, “But with all the people in the world, we should be finding more false positives. And this case is weird,” he paused, “You know what would make finding cases so much easier?”

****

“Oh, not this again,” Dean interrupted. “I already told you the website is a horrible idea. I won’t be a part of getting hunters killed.”

****

“It wouldn’t do that, and think about the lives it would save,” Sam said, preparing himself to resume their argument. He’d brought it up a week ago, and every time he tried to explain Dean-

****

“We’re not talking about this,” said Dean, right on cue. As if the universe was conspiring against Sam, that was when they reached Westerlies proper. 

****

The town was small, that was the first impression Sam had. It was more a collection of building that something deserving of the name town. The Main Street was tiny, holding a General Dollar and a Chick-fil-A before it grew too burdened and slunk away into a row of houses. 

****

“Well, at least we won’t have a problem finding information,” Dean said. “Although I don’t see a motel anywhere. 

****

****

~~~~~~~~~~

****

****

“You mean the Davis boy,” a well padded Chick-fil-A worker said, leaning on the serving counter. He was all to ready to talk. It was either late afternoon or early evening and the three of them were the only people in the building. 

****

Dean nodded, relaxing against the wall as if settling in for a longer conversation. Sensing an end to his boredom, the worker started to talk. “Yes, he was found out by the bridge. Died of hypothermia, I heard. Tragic really, that a teenage dare could get so far. The Davis family isn’t taking it well.”

****

“Teenage dare?” Sam asked. 

****

“What else could it be?” The other said. “Joshua was happy, and after Jake’s death no one wants ta go out alone at night.”

****

“Do you know what happened?” Dean asked. 

****

“I heard he was dared to swim across the river, and they didn’t expect him ta, ya know, do it” The guy said. 

****

“To Jake I meant,” Dean said. The guy gave Dean a long look, but spoke anyway. 

****

“Fell down an abandoned well while playing one evening, why do you want ta know?” The other man moved back into the kitchen, starting to prepare their food. 

****

“Just making conversation,” Dean said, “we’ve been on the road all day, and it’s nice to talk to someone I haven’t been trapped in a car with.”

****

Sam gave Dean an only half-assumed frown. “I could say the same about you, some days.”

****

“Brothers?” The guy asked, relaxing at the bickering. 

****

“Unfortunately,” Sam said, collecting his food and moving for the door. Dean did the same, calling out a ‘good night’ as he left. 

****

Sam was in the car second, and he took a while to buckle his seatbelt, fumbling at the space between them while Dean ate his chicken sandwich with audible enjoyment. 

****

****

~~~~~~~~~

****

****

The brothers pulled up outside the Davis residence, later the same day. It was an old A-frame farmhouse situated at the end of a dirt track lined by fields of soybeans. 

****

“Ready,” Sam asked, jerking his head towards the trunk. They were parked just out of sight of the house, but close enough no questions would be raised. 

****

“Inspectors?” Dean said, talking for the sake of taking. Sam had confirmed the plan with him on the drive over. 

****

“Grab the right name tag this time,” Sam said, sliding out of the car with the rustle of crumpled takeout bags. He was smiling. 

****

Dean made to follow, legs already moving in anticipation of standing. He pressed the release on his seatbelt and braced a hand on the arm rest. But when he tried to stand there was only a rasping sound as the seatbelt was yanked tight and propelled Dean backwards, into his seat. 

****

Sam was chuckling as Dean cursed and turned to examine the buckle. A zip tie had been wrapped around the base of the buckle and through the port on the seat. 

****

“That was childish,” Dean said, flicking open his pocket knife. It took him a second to saw through the tie, which Sam assumed was why he didn’t notice the camera pointed at him. Sam would check if Bobby wanted the video later that night. 

****

“That was funny,” Sam corrected, already waking down the drive. Dean had to jog to catch up. They slowed once they were in sight of the front door, adopting suitably somber personas. There was a basket on the door, a casserole and strawberry rhubarb pie peeking out from a pile of napkins.

****

“The family must be well liked around here,” Sam said, nodding at the basket. Dean wiped his mouth before walking past and knocking on the door. “Yup.”

****

There was the sound of shuffling, and someone calling out that they’d ‘be there in a minute.’ The door opened, revealing a couple. It was immediately apparent that they had been crying recently. Mr. Davis was shaking as he forced his sobs to remain silent.

****

Even Dean seemed taken aback by the grief the two shared. “Sorry to disturb you,” he started.

****

“What do you want?” Mrs. Davis asked, “If you’re trying to sell something, now is a really bad time.”

****

“No, ma’am,” Sam said, offering a look that should convey respect rather than pity. “We hate to bother you, but we’re with the Illinois State Water Authorities. Would you be willing to answer a few questions about your son’s death?”

****

“Water Authorities?” Mrs. Davis asked, “You better not just be saying that, I’ve heard what some people do to-to talk with…” She trailed off.

****

“Our job is to ensure the Carlyle reservoir is kept safe,” Dean filled the silence. “We hate to bother you, but lately there have been several attempts to pollute the water supply with chemicals or rotting flesh introduced after the filtration processes, and when we heard where your son was found, our superiors wanted us to ensure this was not part of it.”

****

It was all bullshit, Sam knew, but the story it presented was strong, people would talk just to reassure themselves that the horrible idea of poison had nothing to do with them. And fears of public panic would explain why they had not heard about it before.

****

“You think our son’s murderer is responsible?” Mr. Davis asked, moving to stand more fully in the doorway.

****

“We think it may be possible,” Dean said, “But we hope not.”

****

Mrs. Davis seemed to shrink. “What do you want to know?”

****

“What can you tell us about where he was found?” Dean asked.

****

“He was right next to the bridge,” Mrs. Davis said. “Right next to the road and there were gouges in the mud where he tried to -I’m sorry. I can’t.”

****

“That’s okay,” Sam said, “can you just tell us if there was anything odd there, symbols perhaps, or signs of animals.”

****

“You talked with those kids, didn’t you,” Mrs. Davis said. She was a tiny woman, but her anger caused her to loom over Sam. “You went and gossiped behind our backs, then had the nerve to come here and ask me to tell you like this is a ghost story or sumwhat.”

****

“No, we,” Dean started. 

****

“Get out,” Mrs. Davis said. “And tell your employers that if anyone comes to bother me again I’ll have them arrested for trespassing. Or worse.”

****

The door slammed in their faces with all the force Mr. Davis possessed. 

****

****

~~~~~~~~~~~~

****

****

They wound up at the nearest motel, two counties over. It was tiny, but the beds seemed clean and the coffee was free. 

****

“What are we supposed to do now?” Dean said, thumping back onto the bed with a shriek of springs. “Go find dinner?”

****

“Actually,” Sam said, “I-”

****

Dean cut him off. “We are not talking about your shitty plan. I’d sooner go after a hobbit again than argue over that dumbass idea.”

****

“Again?” Sam looked up from his laptop, which had been plugged into the television, and forced himself back on topic. “No, I wasn't going to talk about that, although we need to.”  
Dean made to pull on his boots. Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, and continued. “I know someone else we can ask.”

****

“Who?” Dean asked.

****

“Remember the dinner basket,” Sam said. “I saw the name written on it, a Jannet Farlet.”

****

“So?” Dean asked, coming over to examine the screen. Sam had taken to using the television as a second screen, if only to prevent the endless commercials that Dean sat through without thought.

****

“So, it’s been a week and someone is still sending food despite the facts the Davis didn’t seem like the type to have many friends, if the way they ignored the basket-left instead of given to them, I noticed-means anything,” Sam said, swiping Dean away from his tangle of cords.

****

“Busybody or knows more than they’re letting on?” Dean asked, facing showing open sympathy. Sam guessed it was only visible because no one else was there to see it. But he was not going to open that can of worm-monsters.

****

“Not sure, but did you see how Mrs. Davis reacted to the question about symbols?” Sam asked, and stole the HDMI cord from his brother’s hand, returning it to where it had been connected to his computer.

****

“So, what are we waiting for? Let’s go,” Dean said, with a smile that gave Sam pause. The other had taken an unusually long walk that night.

****

“It’s late, we can go tomorrow,” Sam said. Dean nodded and went to find some dinner. 

****

He came back with takeout chinese, showing Sam the limp piece of lettuce they called a salad. Sam stood up, resigned to finding a grocery store still open at the hour when Dean pulled out a second styrofoam box.

****

“Got you something, just in case,” Dean said. Sam smiled, and took a seat at the half desk near Dean.

****

“Thanks,” Sam said, opening the box and taking a bite of the assumed Tao’s Chicken. Sam didn’t think it was supposed to look like grey and red had been dumped over a plate of mushy potatoes. But then, he hadn’t expected to find takeout at all here.

****

“Hot,” Sam yelped, “Hot, hot, hot.” He put his fork down on the plate of chili-powder coated meat.

****

Behind him, Dean snorted in laughter, before promptly joining the dash for water as the more reasonable spice of his own meal went up his nose. 

****

****

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

****

****

Farlet was a tiny woman, perfectly groomed and unimpressed with the two inspectors who’d come to bother her. She looked as if she would have dumped them in the river themselves if she cared any less about hospitality. Her clothing and makeup were immaculate.

****

In short, Dean was instantly inspired to show off. “Would you be willing to speak with us for a bit?” Dean asked, pitching his voice deeper than normal. Sam coughed so hard he had to grab the railing for balance.

****

“Nasty cough,” Ms. Farlet said, giving Sam a smile that made his heart pause for a second. That was the signal for Dean to bodyslam Sam as he moved closer. Sam wound up looking over his brother’s shoulder as the lady invited them in.

****

“I haven’t got much variety, I’m afraid,” she said. “But I make a fairly good witch’s brew, if you like that.”

****

The brother’s stiffened, shoulders setting as they slid their feet to brace against the floor. Dean recovered first. “Witch’s brew? Is that some kind of drink?”

****

The lady nodded, her smile revealing glistening teeth. “Indeed, it’s lemonade mixed with lavender and mint, I think I have a pitcher left, if you’ll just give me a minute to grab it.” The brother’s relaxed

****

“I can help,” the brothers spoke over each other. Dean stepped forward, his voice still deep.

****

“There’s no need,” Ms. Farlet said, “You both are guests.”

****

“Oh, we wouldn’t want to make impositions,” Sam said, “let us help.”

****

Ms. Farlet’s good humor faded into a frown, and when Dean spoke next it was in his normal register. “Or we could wait here.”

****

“That would be fine, Please, have a seat,” Ms. Farlet said, ushering them to a sofa and moving to the kitchen and letting the door swing back behind her.

****

“Have you ever seen a kitchen with a door before?” Sam asked, trying to draw up the willpower to rise from the sofa. It was softer than it looked, and he just wanted to sink into it forever.

****

Dean shook his head, bouncing his leg like the wait was painful. Sam considered that and then spoke in a whisper. “Something’s wrong.”

****

“What do you mean?” Dean asked, strained voice not matching his casual words.

****

“I don’t know,” Sam said, knowing something was wrong. “It feels off here.”

****

“Look,” Dean said, finger tracing a symbol on the quilted blanket draped over the back of the sofa. It was subtle, but undeniably there, symbols, for calmness, for control, for stillness written into the fabric by the threat used to quilt it.

****

“I don’t want to know what that could do if it was wrapped around me,” Sam said, taking his end of the quilt between two fingers. Dean did the same, and together they flung the fabric onto the armchair opposite them.

****

Immediately, it became easier to move. Sam stood up, and moved towards the kitchen, just in time to dodge as the door swung open.

****

“Oh,” Ms. Farlet said, scrambling to rebalance the tray she was carrying. Sam felt himself relax, there was just something soothing about seeing the house’s owner. Even the faded blood stain along the grout of the kitchen floor was not enough to worry him.

****

“Here, have a sip.” her blood red lips formed the words with practiced ease.

****

“The lipstick is new,” Dean said, resettling himself on the couch with a glass of the lemonade.

****

“Oh, just thought I would, now that I had an excuse,” Ms. Farlet said, brushing it off. She took a sip, the brothers mirroring her. Sam bit his tongue before he blurted out something stupid, like how the lipstick made it look as if she was drinking blood. Something was very wrong, but now that Ms. Farlet was here, it didn’t seem to matter as much, compared to common courtesy.

****

The lemonade was odd, Sam decided, the mint and lavender mixing to give it an unpleasant taste. Still, he took a second sip. And a third.

****

“Now, why did you two come to me?” Ms. Farlet asked, and Sam opened his mouth to tell her, about how they thought the deaths were the result of a monster, snapping it shut as he realized what he had been about to do.

****

“We needed to know what hap-” Dean jerked in his seat and blinked. Before Ms. Farlet could speak, Dean raised his hand to his mouth and bit the fleshy edge of his palm. 

****

Dean straightened one hand carefully catching any drops of blood that might fall. The other slapped Sam across the face. 

****

Sam rose, ready to do something, even as his sense that something was off became certainty. “We’re sorry to bother you, but I just remembered,” Sam continued to speak, but no words came out. 

****

He tried again, this time sticking to an easy lie, simple because it was true. “Something. Thank you for the drinks.”

****

With that the brothers each grabbed the other’s arm and towed them out of the room. They didn’t slow their retreat until the car was all the way across town. 

****

“What was that?” Dean asked, fingers drumming on the edge of the steering wheel. 

****

“I don’t know,” Sam said. The words came slowly, and Sam fought to keep his stomach settled as he spoke. “But I think we found our monster.”

****

“We’ll ask Bobby if he knows anything,” Dean said. He turned the impala around, driving back towards the motel.

****

It was a silent ride, for the most part. Only once the motel was in sight did Dean speak. “Hey Sam, you didn’t bobbytrap any part of the room, did you?”

****

“Sure did, your pillow is filled with worms,” Sam said, digging through the glove box for a bottle of water.

****

“Dude,” Dean said, before pausing.”If you did do that, then why tell me?”

****

“Tell you what?” Sam asked, pulling his focus back to whatever Dean was saying. 

****

“Tell me you stuck worms in my pillow,” Dean said slowly, tone implying he thought Sam was being an idiot.

****

“I-I didn’t mean to,” Sam said, voice quiet. “Try asking me again.”

****

“What’d you do to my pillow,” Dean asked, ignoring the road in favor of his brother.

****

Sam was alert now, and he could feel his lips moving as he tried to tell Dean he hadn't done anything, aware of the foreign instinct telling him the truth was easier. “Shut up,” he finally managed.

****

“Sam,” Dean asked, pulling the car off the lane. “What’s wrong?”

****

“I don’t kno-” Sam gagged and tried again “I’m not sure. Dean, tell me the sky is green.”

****

“You want me to what?” Dean asked. At Sam’s glare he changed tacks. “The sky is…”

****

Dean stopped, and his mouth moved for a moment. Then his gaze flicked up into nothingness and he spoke again, slower. “I’ve heard someone I trust say the sky is green.”

****

“See,” Sam said, pointedly not panicking. “You can’t lie either.”

****

“But I can still suggest false shit,” Dean said, “and because it could say that, it means it must be true.” A pause. “This is making my head hurt.”

****

“God exists,” Sam said, “God does not exist.”Dean looked at him, eyebrows drawing together. 

****

“Looks like it can only force us to tell the truth when we know it,” Sam said. “That’s something.”

****

“I want to know what that is exactly.” Even as he finished speaking, Dean made the connection, “The lemonade. That’s has to be it, everything else the lady had was left in the house.”

****

“We need to call Bobby,” Sam said.

****

“And tell him we got cursed to tell the truth?” Dean sighed, “This is going to go smashingly,” a breath and Dean was compelled to add, “not.”

****

****

~~~~~~~~~~~~

****

****

The call had gone as well as could be expected, which, Sam learned, was the type of ambiguous statement that slipped past whatever curse they had.

****

“Why a honesty—truth—curse?” Sam asked, sharpening his pocket knife. Bobby hadn’t known what Farlet might be, but the way she relied on talismans probably meant she was vulnerable to physical attacks in return.

****

“She was about to question us,” Dean said, wiping his hands on his jeans, the oil leaving dark streaks across the denim. “Imagine what she might have learned.” The brothers suppressed a shudder.

****

“What are we going to do?” Sam asked.

****

“There’s a guy I know, about two and a half hours south of here, that does a lot of anti-magic weapons. We can head out tomorrow morning and get back in time to catch her while there’s still light. Hopefully find something to resist the compulsion stuff she does.”

****

“You checked Dad’s journal?”

****

“No, dumbass, I forgot to check,” Dean broke off with a huff. “We’ll see if my guy has any idea how to break this curse while we’re there.”

****

****

~~~~~~~~~

****

“Welp,” said Mike, owner of Jack’s Antiques and Firearms, “Sounds like you have a witch doctor on your hands.”

****

“A what?” the brothers asked in unison.

****

“Witch doctor, a human who binds ambient magic, blood usually, into charms that carry out a specific purpose. They’re more common near a bayou, but they can live anywhere with enough magic. No relation to a witch.”

****

“Entirely human?” Dean asked.

****

“Sure are,” Mike said, handing over a small paper bag. “Here, the thread was dyed red with pokeberries, it should absorb the magic around her before she can catch a hold. Just make sure it surrounders her entirely.”

****

“And the curse?” Sam asked. He was leaning awkwardly against the wall, the building too short for him to stand upright.

****

“I’m sorry, man, I’d see if I could get the witch doctor to break the curse,” Mike said. And, well, that was that.

****

Sam’s phone chimed, the sound bright against the darkened room. Sam read the alert with a scowl. “Another child’s been taken. Disappeared last night.” Sam checked his phone. “They’re calling in the FBI.”

****

****

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

****

****

Farlet’s house looked the same as the last time they were there, a red truck parked out front and curtains drawn wide to let in the sun. It didn’t seem like the kind of place one would hide a kidnapped child. 

****

“What are we gonna do if the kid isn’t there?” Sam asked. 

****

“The kid could be there,” Dean said, tying up the ends of the red thread he had sewn into the seams of his jacket. 

****

“Do you really believe that?” Sam said, doing the same. 

****

“No,” Dean said immediately. “Hey, no asking questions until we break the curse, remember.”

****

“You didn’t have to answer,” Sam said. “Ready?”

****

“Let’s go,” Dean said, touching each firearm in turn as they approached the door. Sam did the same, marking the location of each knife with the hand that was not holding his sawed-off. 

****

Since any hunter worth his salt would have trapped the front door in such a situation, the brothers climbed up the side of the house, pausing on a balcony. The window there was easy to open, but as it rose, a line of glyphs was revealed carved into the sill.

****

“Predictable,” Sam said, cutting the glyphs in slivers that died with a spark of static. The brothers crawled into the house, carpet silencing their footsteps.

****

The second story was darkened, but the sound of sniffles rose up the stairs. All too used to this, the brothers took the time to ensure every room on the floor was empty before moving to the staircase. 

****

The stairs twisted as they descended, leaving the brothers in shadow as they edged around the corner banister. The sound of a child was louder there, even covered as it was by the sound of someone humming.

****

Sam edged further around the corner, hoping he was hallucinating. He had no such luck, Farlet was humming as she packed a bag with knives and bundles of herbs. Beyond her, the quilt the brothers had only touched earlier was tucked around a boy no older than six or seven. His face was streaked with tears but he made no attempt to move. Sam wondered if he even could.

****

Dean crept past him, bringing up a shotgun as Farlet moved into his sight. He fired. The first bullet missed, but the second went right through her left hand.

****

“Shit,” Farlet said, eyes snapping up to glare at the two brothers and her injured hand gestured towards them. Every knife in the room followed the motion, flying towards Dean, and by extension, Sam. 

****

The two toppled backwards, the revolver in Sam’s hand firing in an arc that just missed the witch doctor as he hit the ground. Dean landed on top of Sam, his elbow driving into Sam’s solar plexus as both men grunted. Around them, knives thuded into the woodwork.

****

“Hunters,” Farlet swore, sweeping the quilt off of the suddenly squirming boy. She grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him out the front door, mutilated hand over his mouth. The boy dug his heels in, trying to sink to the floor, grab the doorway, throw a vase at her head. But the witch doctor just picked him off the floor, flinging him over one shoulder.

****

“Son of a bitch,” Dean said from the other direction, and Sam followed his gaze to where the hilt of a paring knife was sticking out of his calf. The tip was visible, the blade having pierced right through the skin and first layer of flesh before coming out the other side.

****

“It missed the artery,” Sam said, and without warning pulled the knife out and wrapped a strip of shirt around the limb, pulling it tight enough to hurt. He tied it off with a sharp jerk that saw Dean go white.

****

“You’ll need to drive,” Dean said, using the banister to pull himself up. “We need to hurry.”

****

“You can walk?” Sam asked. He was already supporting Dean as they hobbled towards the car.

****

“Just don’t ask me to run,” Dean said, which didn’t actually answer Sam’s question. But he was moving, and still had his own guns ready. And the kid needed them now.

****

They made it outside, just in time to catch sight of the witch doctor pick up the flailing kid and throw them into the car before peeling out, driving along the edge of the town. The boy was screaming, banging on the window as Farlet turned a corner so fast a wheel came on the ground.

****

Sam was not far behind, urging the impala faster, unable to do anything until the witch doctor reached wherever she was trying to go.

****

****

~~~~~~~~~~

****

****

By the time Farlet slowed, the adrenaline had worn off, and Sam could hear Dean inhale on every bump in the dirt track. “A farm?” Sam said, wrenching the car into park as the witch doctor raced towards the whitewashed house proclaiming itself a museum. 

****

It was a long run, the house was set back behind the barn, nearly a hundred yards off the road. Farlet was already reaching the house, kid back over her shoulder.

****

Farlet saw them coming, and pointed, the brothers ducked back, leery of any further knives. “Shadow, attack,” she said. From the house a pale grey figure raced out, raced out of the open door, fangs extended.

****

“That’s a kitten,” Dean said, faltering as he moved back into the open. “I don’t want to hurt a kitten.”

****

“It’s a familiar, shoot it,” Sam said, waving at the fast approaching bundle of fur. It looked like a kitten, all soft fur and too big paws.

****

“You shoot it,” Dean said, glaring at Sam as they continued to close the distance. Sam started fumbling with his pocket, the sawed-off in his hand slowing the movements as he searched.

****

“What are you doing?” Dean demanded to know, the kitten was getting closer, and both brothers were pretty certain that it’s teeth should not be that large. “It’s growing,” Sam said.

****

No more than a few seconds had passed, and the kitten was already the size of a medium dog. Sam found what he was looking for as Dean raised his gun.

****

“Here,” Sam shouted. He threw the item at the animal, the red thread catching the wind and growing as it flew. It landed squarely in the kitten’s face, and the animal tumbled to a stop, tail over ears, as it began to shrink. The brothers raced past it.

****

“So, the thread works,” Dean panted as they moved into what must have been the kitchen. Whatever he might have said next was lost, as they caught sight of the witch doctor. She was holding a stone knife, pinning the child down on a flat rock stained black with old blood.

****

“Stop,” Dean said, bringing his gun up. Farlet whirled around, pulling the kid with her. A moment later, he was in front of her, knife at his neck. Both Winchester froze.

****

“Easy,” Dean said. Lowering the gun, he began to edge around the room. Sam moved the opposite direction, keeping his gun raised, if not pointed at the kid.

****

“Let the kid go,” Sam said. “Don’t give us a reason.”

****

“Would you really risk shooting the kid,” Farlet said, “Tell me honestly, I know you have to.”

****

“Yeah,” Dean said, causing the witch doctor to turn, adjusting herself so both of the brothers were in sight. “About that. You’re going to tell us how to break it, or I’ll see how many of your bones I can break. And I mean that—honestly.”

****

“I want a guarantee you won’t try to kill me,” Farlet said, yanking the boy up higher, knife following the boy.

****

Sam growled. “You let the boy go, tell us how to break the curse, and we,” Sam worked his jaw as if the words hurt to say, “we won’t kill you.”

****

“Sam,” Dean said, taking his eyes off of Farlet.

****

“We won’t kill you,” Sam repeated. “We don’t kill humans.” Dean shifted but when a flash of light reflected off of Farlet’s knife he too nodded.

****

“We won’t kill you,” he said. “Tell us how to break the curse, we put the guns down, you let the kid go and you are free to leave.”

****

“Counter offer, I tell you how to break the curse and leave the kid alive, and you stop trying to kill me,” Farlet said, she waved her injured hand. “I just need a little bit to heal this.”

****

“Fine,” Sam said, they could shoot her, non-fatally, before she did anything without breaking their agreement. Dean glared at Sam, but followed his lead with a choked out “deal.”

****

“A curse of honesty made in as the sun falls in the sky,” Farlet paused, “Watch the sun rise in the city of false promise, that should break it.”

****

“You mean,” Sam began to ask. It sounded like the kind of spell Mike said witch doctors used, but they needed instructions, not a riddle.

****

“I mean you have less than a week to stand in the sunlight of Las Vegas at sunrise, or the curse is permanent, now lower your guns.”

****

They did. “How do we know you’re telling the truth?” Dean asked as Farlet relaxed her grip on the boy.

****

“Trust in my desire to never see you again,” the witch doctor said. With that, she reached behind her, and flung something at the brothers before fleeing out the side door, screen door banging behind her.

****

That something was a jar of flour, which erupted on impact with the floor. Blinded, the brothers began to cough, shielding their eyes from the powder. Leaving Dean behind Sam followed, firing at the witch as he ran. It missed, hitting the barn door behind her as it slid shut.

****

Before Sam could get past the porch, he saw two men in bulletproof vests run towards the door, FBI emblazoned across their backs. He wavered there for a second, hearing a shot ring out from the wooden structure. 

****

The call of all clear that followed decided him and he moved back to the screen door, catching sight of another bulletproof vest as he moved. Changing direction midstep, he moved behind the doorway, just barely able to see two FBI agents through the sinking flour as they stood in the kitchen, guns pointed directly at Dean.

****

“You’re Dean Winchester,” said the shorter FBI agent.

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, Reid and Hotch must attempt to escape the most lethal killers the BAU has ever seen. And the Winchesters are frighteningly self aware for delusional men.
> 
> Any guesses as to how that goes?


	3. Chapter 3

Reid was on edge before he heard the gunshot. The farm turned museum was dark and a second car was parked alongside the red truck. They had yet to identify who might have attacked Farlet or if the splatters of blood belonged to Will.

Then came the sound of a shotgun firing, just inside the house. Reid glanced at Hotch, letting him take the lead as they entered the house proper. They reached the doorway in time to make out a figure, leaning heavily against the counter, cursing.

“Fucking witch doctor, why’d it have to be Las Vegas?” the man said, leather jacket white with flour. “They hate us there.”

At that moment, a second shot reached the odd collection of people, the sound recognizable as Morgan’s usual firearm.

A glance at Hotch had the two moving forward, capitalizing on the distraction to train their firearms on the man. He noticed, of course, but the reaction was delayed, leaving him no time to find a defensive place against the wall. 

Instead the man stood in the center of the room, gun trained on the agent closest to him. Which happened, Reid noticed with a swallow, to be himself. And saying gun was something of a misnomer, the sawed-off would send buckshot like shrapnel to cover the entire wall behind Reid. 

The sole good thing to come from the man’s turn was that his face followed. “You’re Dean Winchester,” Reid said, trying to draw the murderer closer to him and away from the exits. Better for the man to not have a clear path of escape.

“Drop your weapon,” Hotch ordered, his own focused directly on the killer’s head. The man turned to face him, his entire manner shifting as he did so.

“I don’t know-” the man started, his words cutting off before he finished. “Dean Winchester was recorded as dead in Las Vegas two months ago. I’m not sure what’s going on, but you guys have the wrong idea here.”

“Who are you then?” Reid asked, trying to ignore the way Winchester followed his every move with the gun. Talking was good, it meant backup had a chance to arrive. 

Behind Winchester, Hotch was circling, moving to take the place behind him in the kitchen. It was a good spot, right in front of the screen door where the rest of their team could easily see them. 

Winchester knew what they were doing, unsurprisingly for a man profiled to have never made it a week without violence. The man moved with them, allways keeping the exit at his back. What he did next didn’t fit the profile Reid had read back when the Winchesters were first noticed. 

“Lower on the count of three?” He asked Reid, as if this was a joke between friends. Actually, the man was well documented in both delusions and disregard for law enforcement. He might actually mean to keep to his offer. The way Winchester was lowering his gun suggested so.

Too bad the presence of the gun shot a hole in that theory, Reid thought, lowering his own weapon in a delayed mirror to Winchester. No one carries a gun without expecting trouble.

“Drop the gun and put your hands behind your head,” Hotch said, his sentence ending with a strangled urk. It was probably caused by the arm that wrapped around his neck, Reid guessed, staring at the very tall man who’d just forced Hotch into a headlock like it was nothing.

“Ya know,” said the older Winchester, nodding at the new man, “I don’t think I will.” He grinned then and raised his gun to point at Reid again. “Drop the gun.”

It wasn’t really a question, Reid decided. He’d read the brief on the Winchesters, years ago. They were mission oriented killers—would only want to kill their target but they had had no problem attacking the officers in Las Vegas when they got in the way.

“What do you want?” Reid asked, carefully relaxing his stance, his firearm pointed loosely at the floor.

“I want you to put the gun down, right now,” the other man, Sam Winchester, said. To punctuate his statement he twisted Hotch’s gun away and slid it across the kitchen counter. It landed in the sink with the crack of shatting dishes. Sam’s own gun was still pressed against Hotch’s head.

Hotch looked at Reid, face impassive as always. Reid doubted he remembered the Winchesters, they’d been declared dead after the Las Vegas debactacle. Not many remembered names of dead criminals a year after the fact. On the other hand, Hotch had most certainly noticed Reid’s reluctance to push back, gun to his head notwithstanding. When Reid caught his eye the man nodded, a slight jerk that would only have been seen if one was looking for it.

When Dean shifted his weight in a manner probably intended to be threatening, Reid moved. 

Slowly, eyes not leaving the others in the room, he bent over and set the gun down before straightening and retreating a step.

The older brother stepped forward, muttering an ‘easy’ when Reid flinched. He flinched again when Sam Winchester spoke, unaware that Reid could understand latin.

“We need to go, now. The other enforcers,” Reid supposed that was the latin equivalent of police, “are already here.”

“We need to take them,” Dean said, also in latin. Reid did not let his breathing stutter upon hearing the approaching complication. If the others were here, he just had to delay for a little bit longer.

“No we don’t,” Sam said, dropping back into english. “Are you crazy?”

“Nope, and yes, we do,” Dean said, taking another step towards Reid. “They know who we are and where we’re going.” 

“You’re kidding, right?” Sam said, glancing at Hotch with something closer to annoyance than fear or anger. That was bad. Annoyance meant indifference, and the Winchesters had to know it was easier to kill than kidnap.

“Can I lie to you?” Dean asked, emphasising the word lie.

“What are we supposed to do now?” Sam said, readjusting his grip on Hotch to something more suited to moving a person than shooting them.

“Take them to old man?” Dean asked, the clunky latin painfully vague. Reid tried to remember if any of the Winchester’s delusions had included one of the old gods of death. 

“Bobby?” Sam asked, allowing Reid to relax enough to dare a minuscule wave, a twitch of his fingers really, at Hotch. Something to tell him they had a chance to resolve this. Bobby was a common name, especially for older men.

“You can let us go,” Reid said, daring a step back from Dean. “If you need to go to Las Vegas we can make that happen. You don’t want to kidnap two officers of the law.”

The brothers looked at him, but whatever they might have said was lost to the sound of another car screeching to a halt outside the barn.

“Time to go,” Sam said as Dean covered the last few steps between himself and Reid. 

“Yep,” Dean said, pinning Reid’s arms behind his back before tucking his gun into the back of his pants. 

Reids own gun was kicked to the far side of the kitchen, leaving a clear streak of floor among the flour. Dean’s newly freed hand went over Reid’s mouth and the two agents found themselves all but carried out of the house.

Reid was not passive about the fact. Both himself and Hotch knew the odds of survival once a victim was moved to a secondary location. The Winchester brothers believed it was their duty to kill monsters, since they hadn’t tried to kill the agents they probably would not do so if the agents resisted. Sam had tucked away his firearm as well.

So Reid fought, screaming through the hand covering his mouth, clawing at the doorway to delay the time they left, kicking at shins until he was lifted clear off the ground. The others were here, and the gunshot had been over a minute ago, someone would think to secure the area soon.

Behind him, he could hear Hotch doing the same, with even less success. Indeed, after one muffled shout there was a dull thud and the older agent fell quiet. Reid struggled to look over Dean Winchester’s shoulder to see why. Winchester let him, using the distraction to carry Reid over to an old muscle car, on the opposite side of the house as the barn. Reid might have misjudged the level of violence the Winchesters found acceptable. 

In the interest of not risking a concussion, Reid moved from resisting to leaving as much trace evidence as he could. With his arms restrained, that was challenging. He was able to pull a few caught hairs from his watch, but nothing else. Dean Winchester however, was leaving plenty of trace evidence, as flecks of dried blood fell off of his injured leg. 

From behind the elder Winchester’s hand, Reid saw Hotch had fallen slack as he was dumped into the backseat, Sam removing the ankle holster as if he’d known it was there. Hotch lolled against the seat, eyes blinking far too fast as Sam reached over and buckled him in. Reid was in next, the door slammed and the car started before he could even begin to plan how he might jump out.

Glancing up at the front seat, Reid saw that aside from surreptitious glances in the mirror the brothers were ignoring him, sitting in a prickly silence as the car slunk down the drive. Once they reached the road the car sped up, making Reid grope for his own seatbelt.

Once he was no longer in danger of going flying, Reid dared to turn his attention to Hotch. The agent had stopped blinking, and a hand had come up to his head, rubbing at the side where the bone was thickest. Stunned, Reid decided. “Are you alright?” he asked. The words were quiet, barely audible above the engine.

“My eyes aren’t focusing,” Hotch answered, turning to look in Reid’s general direction. The words were overly loud, a fact Hotch only seemed to notice after the fact.

In the front seat, Sam shifted in his seat, the hand not holding his gun coming up to scrub at his neck. “Are you sure we cannot just leave them somewhere?” he asked, the latin words formal, like he had learned them from a book.

“After what they think we did in Las Vegas?” Dean asked, “I don’t know about you..” there Dean trailed off, “actually I do, and I know that I don’t want to go back to having to worry about getting arrested every time I have to take a shit in a crappy Las Vegas gas station or order my damn dinner when we have to go there,” Dean didn’t bother with his brother’s artifice, speaking in plain english. That reassured Reid, a feeling that he needed to examine closer.

Normally hearing intentions was a bad sign, but this wasn’t a planned abduction, so the fact Dean felt comfortable talking in front of them meant he thought nothing he said would provoke the agents. Of course that assumed Reid trusted the Winchesters’ judgement. “They’re going to know you did it anyways,” Reid said. “Your blood is at the crime scene. Please, just let us go, I promise we-”

Sam cut him off. “Blood only matters if you can match it. Our DNA isn’t in your system. I’m sorry, but we need to detain you, just for a few days. Then you will be free to go.”

“What about the blood samples from the Casino Murders?” Hotch asked. His eyes were not quite focused but he was sitting upright, intent on the two in front of him.

“That wasn’t us,” Dean said. He was driving back through the town, wild speed slowed to something that approached the posted limits.

“What was it?” Reid asked. The profile summary he’d read offered no specifics on the brother’s shared psychosis.

“Vampire with an artifact that made it look like the last person who made an enemy of it,” Dean said, as if daring the agents to question him. “The vamp didn’t get a chance to bite us, so the blood can’t be ours.”

“A vampire?” Reid asked, gauging the speed of the car again. Most old cars didn’t have childlock. Unfortunately, they were going slow enough he could probably jump out, but not slow enough for Hotch to follow if Dean hit the accelerator. 

“Yep,” Dean said, “Vampires, wendigos, werewolves, they’re all real by the way.”

“And you hunt them,” Hotch said, voice so even, Reid, who knew the man, could not tell what he was thinking.

“We don’t expect you to believe us,” Sam offered as the car stopped in front of a familiar house. The words made both Hotch and Reid tense, checking to see if Sam still held the firearm. He did, along with a knife that looked closer to a machete.

“What are you doing?” Sam asked his brother, as Dean opened parked in front of the Farlet house.

“The quilt Farlet used, I want to see what Bobby makes of it,” Dean said, “Might be a useful trick too, when dealing with the superfast creepy-crawlies.”

“You know, I used to wonder if you had any brain ce-” for the second time that day, one of the Winchester broke off mid-sentence. “Good thinking.”

Dean was out of the car, in the house and back before Sam even finished telling them not to move. He carried a faded quilt, wrapped in several layers of newspaper, around to the boot of the car, tossing it in and closing the lid with a slam that made Hotch wince.

“It’s going to be a long ride,” Sam warned the agents as they backed onto the main lane again. “Might want to make yourself comfortable.”

“Where are we going?” Reid asked. While he may not carry a phone regularly, Hotch always had his on him. The brother’s lived a transient lifestyle, it should be only a matter of time before Hotch found a chance to call. Knowing where Bobby lived would be rather useful.

“Somewhere that isn’t here,” Dean said, and turned up the music.

~~~~~~~

When it came to awkward rides, this one had not only made off with the cake, it’d taken the whole kitchen as well. This was not the type of kidnapping Reid knew. The Winchesters had never shown any interest in law enforcement, or anyone not involved with their perceived monsters, yet here their concern was only that the agents could not reveal their survival. 

This was uncomfortable for many reasons, Reid thought, not least because it meant the Winchesters kept switching between threats and apologies, as if so used to the former they forget the second was called for.

At the moment however, the ride was rapidly becoming uncomfortable for a very simple reason. Six cups of coffee with no chance for a bathroom break had only one possible result. If Hotch’s less than subtle glances between Reid and the front seat meant anything, he’d also made the connection through Reid’s squirming. The Winchesters had not, their resolution to act as if the backseat was empty, still holding strong four hours into the abduction. 

Reid had been debating speaking for the past ten minutes, the brothers were unlikely to take offense at the request—thank goodness—however stopping would give the brother’s time to think. And victims of opportunity died when their abductor thought about how inconvenient it was to hold another person captive. 

What decided Reid was decidedly less polished than a profile. He’d read what happened to a man who’d scratched Winchester’s car. The man had been in the hospital for a week with a pulverized jaw. Reid was not going to risk it.

“Um,” he said, having to repeat himself to be heard over the sounds of Back in Black. “Can you pull over?” Reid nodded at the endless tract of government land along the side of the road. It was early evening by then, and the flat land was glowing golden in the light of the falling sun.

“Pull over,” Dean said, raising a single eyebrow. Sam seemed to get what he was saying, cheeks flushing pink as he nudged his brother, “Dean, pull over.”

That seemed to help, Dean signaling right on the empty lane as they pulled to a stop on the shoulder. Reid made a note of that. Dean was meticulous in his driving in a way his appearance belied. Typically it was the other way around, organized killers precise in appearance while their arrogance turned up in their attitudes to danger.

“Now what?” Dean said, not quite looking at the backseat. That was bad. The man was distancing himself from the situation, refusing to accept it. For vigilante type killers, that could end in the agents becoming monsters as Dean struggled to keep his world view the same.

“I assume both of you have to use the head,” Sam said, tone shifting into that of a nurse, professional, matter-of-fact, and disinterested. Hotch nodded in agreement matching the lack of expression effortlessly.

“I sure as hell ain’t gonna supervise,” Dean said to Sam, voice barely audible over the music still playing. Both Hotch and Reid gave aborted winces. The man was already vocal in his dislike of the situation and he thought there wasn't enough evidence to pin the abduction on him without testimony from the agents. That usually led to dead bodies.

Sam hummed, and for one heartstopping moment Reid thought it was in agreement. But no, he was merely thinking. “I’m going to get out of the car, and then you will, one by one. I’m going to ask you to remove your vest and your shoes, give me your phone, and then you can take a quick bathroom break. Sound good?”

The agents nodded, Reid analysing the linguistic sample he’d been given as Hotch climbed out of the car with the cracking of stiff joints and a silent groan. The need to explain suggested that Sam could understand the agents desire to know what was happening. Almost certainly not someone with psychopathic tendencies. The formality of the first part—Sam was probably uncomfortable, falling back on his training as a lawyer. 

It was the last part that relaxed Reid enough for him to slide out of the car and stand in front of the, currently armed, killer. ‘Sound good’ was a question, something a person would ask if they were trying to build a relationship with mutual respect. The BAU did the same thing every time they asked ‘is that alright?’

It was perhaps a weak reassurement, that one of the duo did not mean them ill, but Reid was taking what he could. Standing up straight was a relief after so many hours sitting still to avoid the creaking leather. He could see Hotch off to the side, rolling his shoulders in an exaggerated show of ease.

“Phone?” Sam asked, taking the bullet proof vest Reid handed over.

“I don’t have one,” Reid said, initiating eye contact for a brief second.

“Yeah right,” Dean said from where he was leaning against the engine, keys dangling from the hand without a gun. “Everyone has a phone nowadays.”

“I really don’t,” Reid said, “I forgot to charge it this week, it’s still at,” he was going to say the station, but thought better of the reminder, “my room.”

“You won’t mind if I check then,” Dean said, setting the gun down on the far end of the car and stepping forward. 

“Not at all,” Reid said, not moving as Sam switched places with Dean.

The patdown Dean gave him was cursory, checking the possible locations with none of the roughness that Reid had assumed likely. When he’d found the rubik's cube he pulled it out for a second, before handing it back to Reid.

That was good, Reid decided, as Dean retreated to his previous position. It meant he saw Reid as a person, otherwise he wouldn’t have felt awkward about returning the cube to his pocket. That he saw fit to return it all was more ambiguous. It suggested a lack of malice that was both good and dangerous, for the indifferent attitude rarely ended well on the cases the BAU reviewed.

“Shoes,” Sam said, an unnecessary reminder when combined with Reid’s bladder urging him to hurry.

Reid toed them off, standing on the crumbled asphalt gingerly. Between the road and the goat’s head strewn grass there would be no good opportunity to escape. 

“Nice socks,” Sam said, backing up. Reid looked down, noticing that he was wearing his blue police box pair. 

“Thank you,” he said, polite wariness providing the answer. Luckily, that was all the Winchester seemed to want to say, as Reid was able to make for the nearest bush with no further interruptions. Having to pull out sticker burrs didn’t count.

~~~~~~~~~

After pressing bodily necessities had been taken care of, the agents switched to pressing matters. The Winchesters were finding their own bushes and combing through the car, pulling out increasingly disturbing items with each sweep. Reid did not want to know how so many hairpins and necklaces came to be in the backseat. Both options were unpleasant to contemplate.

Ignored for the moment, aside from the occasional glance to see where they were, the agents stood well out of hearing range. “You recognized them,” Hotch said, eyes unblinking in the bright light. No lasting damage from hitting his head.

“Sam and Dean Winchester,” Reid said. “Presumed dead. They were raised by John Winchester. By all accounts he was delusional, believing a demon had killed his wife. Several murders have been linked to him once we were made aware of them. His sons appear to have a similar delusion, and travel from town to town, finding circumstances that remind them of monster hunts their father took them on and killing the person—monster—responsible.” The last word was spat out.

“Presumed dead?” Hotch asked, one hand rubbing at his neck. His earpiece had been taken along with his phone.

“They went to Las Vegas about nine months ago, claiming one of the LVMPD was responsible for a string of exsanguinated hookers. Dean was arrested, but let go on lack of evidence. That night he attacked the officer, killing him. No one had connected him with any of his previous crimes yet, so they underestimated him, only searching in pairs,” Reid said, pausing as the brothers glanced over at them again.

“No one knows the full details but a police car was found in Red Rock Canyon the next day, the officers, and two men burnt beyond recognition inside. One was beheaded, with the head relatively intact, and the coroner identified him as Dean based on a recorded interview. The other body was tall and shared DNA, so they tentatively identified it as Sam.”

“They said it was a magic item that could change appearances,” Hotch said. “Plastic surgery?”

“I don’t know,” Reid said, “but that might explain why they will not let us go.”

“Really,” Hotch said, both of them watching as Dean traded out his sawed off for a smaller hand gun. When they made their escape, the boot of the car would need to be emptied somehow.

“The LA guys hold a rather large grudge,” Reid said. “Cop killers don’t just get forgotten.” His words were redundant, both men knew, but watching in silence would have been more painful still.

“Any known abductions?” Hotch eventually asked.

“All killed within the day,” Reid said. “However, sometimes missing people show up, claiming the brothers saved them.”

“They actually find monsters sometimes,” Hotch guessed. It stood to reason, if the brothers were searching for unexplained deaths, that some of them would be less than accidental.

“That was the assumption,” Reid said.

The conversation was cut short then with a “Here, piggies, piggies,” from Dean. He’d changed at some point, adding a leather jacket that covered his belt. He’d probably added a few other weapons, if Reid read him correctly.

Reid saw Sam elbow him hard as the agents turned to face the car. “Sorry about him,” Sam said, “um, mind coming back over here?”

Reid rather did mind, truth be told. Still, the agents made their way over, picking their way around the sharper rocks or plants. Their shoes were nowhere to be seen.

Dean grunted, leaning back against the car, coiled muscles failing to let the action seem anything but threatening. Sam rubbed at the back of his neck. “You get to choose, are you willing to let us cuff you or do we need to keep the guns out the whole ride?”

“Is neither an option?” Reid asked, weighing his words. Better to push back now, when they were still very clearly obeying the command to return.

“I’m afraid not,” Sam said, “I know a bit about training requirements for field work.” Dean snorted, but Sam beat him to speaking. “Quite a bit, actually.” Both Winchesters frowned.

That was odd, Reid noted, the admission didn’t fit with the sympathetic persona Sam had embraced. What had compelled him to bring up a fact that Sam must have known would discomfort the agents?

The question had to be dropped as Hotch spoke. “The cuffs, I think.”

It was the correct choice, Reid knew, pushing down the surge of nausea at the idea of being made even more helpless. In a fight, the agents would lose, so better to buy trust and wait for a better opportunity to run.

Dean stood up then, coming to stand just out of striking distance. “Fine, but be gentle with Baby,” a nod at the car, “or we find something less fun.”

Reid nodded and Hotch moved to sit as directed with uncharacteristic fumbling. “Hands out,” Sam said as Dean told Reid to move around to the other side. 

Once seated, Reid discovered the final piece of bad news. Being handcuffed was bad. Having the handcuffs threaded through the loop of the seat belt buckle was far, far worse. Even if left alone, they were trapped. Not to mention the awkward position would quickly become painful. Reid hoped the Winchesters would start making their plan to get some sleep sooner rather than later.

In contrast to the spectacular bad luck Reid had been having that day, the Winchesters did pull over within the hour, once it got truly dark. Well before the position became any more painful than that of the middle seat on a long flight. 

The Winchesters pulled to a stop in the middle of nowhere, down a potholed forest service road. They got out of the car without a word to the agents, moving to open the boot. Through the back window, Reid saw them pull out a roll of stained fabric. Reid had seen blankets like that before, wrapped around bodies found buried in the middle of nowhere. Maybe the streak of bad luck hadn’t ended quite yet.

Sam pulled out a shovel and a flashlight, walking into the dark woods until the light was no longer visible. Nearly twenty minutes later, he returned, sans shovel.

“Time to go,” Dean said, opening Reid’s door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this misunderstanding promises to be highly amusing- to the reader, the agents no so much. Please, comments feed my inner writer—let me know what parts you like best.
> 
> Also, a number of the comments below have brought up the odds of two parties speaking Latin. A few things to note: most people who can read Latin have also come across the phonetic conventions for spoken Latin at least once; nerds (or anyone very familiar fairy tales, history, medicine, or D&D) are disproportionately likely to know Latin; and finally, the Winchesters are canonically shown to speak Latin and Reid is known to read classic literature in the original language. Also, some schools have started to offer Latin as a foreign language. Thus I felt it was reasonable to assume both parties fell into this subset of the population.


	4. Chapter 4

Garcia had stopped being worried a long time ago. Now she was edging further into something she didn’t know the name of. Rage, perhaps, or desperation. A few more minutes and she’d start bargaining with deities she didn’t believe in for her friends’ safe return.

“Found something,” Morgan said, ducking back into the barn. Beside her, Rossi looked up from where he stood, watching Will cling to his father. The older man hadn’t moved aside from passing Farlet off to a local officer. He moved now, wrapping an arm around Garcia and guiding her out of the farm and away from the reunited family.

“Found what?” he asked, once they were out of earshot. He glanced at Garcia after he spoke. She nodded, her head barely moving. She wanted to hear this, no matter how bad. 

“Blood, tire treads, footprints,” Morgan said before cutting across his own words, “are you sure you want to hear this, baby girl?”

Garcia looked at Morgan, “My friends are missing; either you tell me or I look it up later when I’m angry at you.” There was a difference, she’d learned, between not liking to hear about the ugly parts of human nature and being unable to deal with it. 

“Right,” Morgan said, offering her a brief smile, “There were signs of a struggle, where our unsubs ran into Farley. It looks like Reid and Hotch found them just after she escaped.”

“Them?” Garcia asked. 

From beside her, Rossi spoke, “A single person wouldn’t be able to control two agents. Combined with the reservoir inspectors we heard about and it seems likely there are two.”

They arrived at the kitchen then, where the flour coating everything made it easy to tell what had happened. The largest set of footprints disappeared out the door with enough space between each to suggest a run. Then, after the rest of the flour had a chance to settle, they came back in, this time close together as if sneaking until they reached a roughed up patch. 

The patch had two sets of prints, the second one, Garcia knew belonged to Hotch. She’d had to filter his prints out of crime scene photos enough to recognize them on sight. 

“They got to Hotch first,” she said, Morgan coming to stand on her other side. Beyond them, Officer Stark had knelt next to a pool of blood. She had an open field forensics kit next to her. 

“Checking blood type now,” she said, voice quiet and eyes not quite meeting the agents’. “If you want to wait outside, well, we’d all understand.”

“No,” Morgan said, as Garcia said, “No, thank you.”

Officer Stark nodded, and turned back to the congealed blood. With a q-tip, she dabbed a bit of blood into the three circles of the test, added the appropriate antigens to each, and watched to see what happened. 

“A-positive,” she said, and Garcia relaxed, shuddering as she braced a hand against Morgan. 

“Hotch is O-neg and Reid is B-positive,” she said. 

Officer Stark coughed then, nodding at the other area of blood. “That’s from a gunshot, Farlet claims it’s hers.”

“And this,” Rossi said. The blood spatter Stark had just tested had larger drops and the edges of the puddle were soaking into the wood. 

“Passive spatter, one of the unsubs was wounded before he got here,” Morgan said. 

Get a sample, I know someone who works with the national database,” Garcia said. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Officer Stark said and reached back into her field kit. Garcia turned back to looking around the room, trying to see what else had happened. 

Before she could do anything, Rossi stepped away, and began to speak as he moved around the room, “When Reid and Hotch got here, the first unsub was here alone and injured. It looks like Hotch tried to circle behind him, and the second unsub took the opportunity to grab him.” Rossi demonstrated, one hand pushing Morgan’s gun hand down as the other moved to press against his throat.

“Something about them made Reid surrender his gun,” Morgan cut in. “So, I’m being held at gunpoint by two men,” he nodded at the spray of Farlet’s blood, “and they have Hotch, but they don’t kill him. Why?”

“Maybe they don’t like killing,” Garcia said.

“They had no problem shooting Farlet,” Rossi said, gesturing for her to continue.

“Farlet killed children, right?” Garcia said, “That gives them a reason to go after her only.”

“Possibly, but vigilante types aren't exactly known for caring about collateral damage,” Rossi said, “If you’re right, they should make contact with us soon.”

“You think they left the agents somewhere?” Morgan said, “Why?” 

“First off,” Rossi said, “these men were able to find Farlet before us, so they’re smart. Second of all, if we assume they’re the inspectors, they’re self aware enough to create a cover story. That suggests they know law enforcement is trying to solve the case.”

“They feel like they’re helping law enforcement,” Morgan said, starting to pace.

“Yes,” Rossi said, “They didn’t shoot Reid or try to rush him, that suggests enough respect that they are unlikely to want to harm them. Finally, Reid didn’t try to fight them, so something they said was convincing.”

“Um, I hate to tell you now, but we found signs of a struggle,” Officer Stark said, leaning in the empty doorway, “One of them clawed up the front door something awful.”

Something snapped. It took Garcia a moment to realize what. The edge of pain helped, guiding her to look at her hand and the shattered earring drawing blood from her palm. “Ow,” she said, more out of reflex than anything else.

“Baby girl,” Morgan said, coming over to unhook her earring and sweep the shards into a spare evidence bag. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Garcia said, looking around for Rossi. She found him just around the corner, talking with Officer Stark in a voice too low to be heard.

“You sure?” Morgan asked, before holding his hands up, “Okay, okay, you’re fine.”

“I’m going to see if anyone has tried to contact us,” Garcia said, pulling out her phone with the uninjured hand. The screen lit up, revealing an absolute lack of both wifi and cell service in the area. Well, that explained a few things about earlier.

“No service,” Garcia said. “I’m going to see if I can find a better spot.”

“Garcia,” Morgan said. He didn’t say anything else for a long moment. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Why not?” she asked, turning to include the newly returned Rossi in her question. “You said vigilantes were the type to like law enforcement.”

“They fought as they were moved, and one of them managed to hit Mr. A-positive’s wound again,” Rossi said.

“That’s good right?” Garcia asked, taking a step forward.

“There weren’t any signs of a struggle past the front door,” Rossi said.

“How bad?” Morgan asked, gaze focused on Reid’s gun still laying on the floor where hit had been kicked away.

“No drag marks, thank God,” Officer Stark said, and Garcia clenched her jaw as the expanded range of possibilities to worry about. 

“You think they could have killed them,” she said. “What changed?” She was going to cry soon, Garcia knew, in a vague sort of way, but she would wait, until after they were back, safe.

“Will saw everything,” Printiss said, stepping into the room. She’d been interviewing the families since almost before they’d stepped off the plane, Garcia knew, in the country where Garcia couldn’t get ahold of her. The officer hovering behind her spoke to how’d she’d heard the bad news.

“What do you mean?” several people asked at once.

“He saw our unsubs try to negotiate with Farlet,” Prentiss answered. “They thought she had cursed them.”

“Fuck,” said Officer Stark, flushing red as the room turned to look at her.

“Well said,” Rossi muttered under his breath.

Garcia might not have been an agent, but she’d picked up a few things. “They’re delusional,” she said.

“Worse,” Prentiss said, “They’re delusional _too._ ”

Rossi released a short hum, somehow managing to suggest Prentiss elaborate.

“Farlet thinks the blood gives her paranormal powers, our unsubs think she cursed them, and Will is _convinced_ that Farlet used magic to keep him still,” Prentiss said, not bothering to sound pleasant.

“What does this mean for Reid and Hotch?” Garcia asked, voice breaking mid-sentence.

“We don’t know,” Morgan said.

“We can’t know what they’ll do,” Rossi said. “Their delusion could be anything. We need to talk to Will.”

“The kid thinks it’s all magic,” the officer behind Prentiss said, “what good will it do?”

“More good than standing here watching the flour settle,” Rossi said, “has the father given permission for an interview?”

“He insists on being present,” the officer said, “And he sure ain’t happy that we want to talk to him so soon.”

“We need to do it now, before he forgets,” Rossi said. Unconsciously, the team followed him out of the room, Officer Stark waving them out absentmindedly as she bent to examine something Garcia didn’t see.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Larsons had yet to let each other out of sight. Someone had arranged for a couch to be brought into the town hall, giving the two a quiet place to sit in the busy station. Garcia’s collection of monitors was beyond the couch, creating a mock wall to separate the two from the larger room.

“Can you tell us what you saw?” Prentiss asked from where she was sitting on a plastic folding chair beside Morgan. The question was circumspect, allowing Will a chance to distance himself from what happened if needed.

“After the other guys attacked her?” Will asked, leaning further back into his father’s arm. 

“Sure,” Morgan said, speaking in the gentle voice he reserved for children. Behind Garcia, Rossi stepped away to go investigate Farlet’s house again.

“She took me to the museum,” Will said, “the other guys were chasing us. I think they were mad that she made a knife fly into their leg.”

“She threw a knife at them?” Prentiss asked, tone rising to echo Will’s.

“No,” Will shook his head, leaning towards Prentiss with wide eyes. “She used magic.”

Mr. Larson shifted then, and Garcia could picture his mouth opening even with a monitor blocking her sight. She turned back to her computers as Morgan began his polite request that the man let Will speak uninterrupted. 

Garcia had not missed the way her team was breaking up. It wasn’t overt, but Garcia could pick up the signs. Rossi’s perfectly slicked back hair was stretching unkempt tendrils up towards the ceiling, Prentiss had yet to abandon the protective layer of her jacket in the warm building. Morgan had gone to drink a mug of coffee only to set it down several times.

“What kind of magic?” Prentiss asked. Garcia pulled up a list of common hallucinatory drugs to cross check the account. 

“Magic magic,” Will said, “that’s why she took us—she needs our blood to do magic.”

That was -that was _disturbing_. Not that Farlet believed in blood magic, that was just another addition to the gross information that came with her job. It was Will’s acceptance that disturbed her, no child should be so untroubled by the reasoning behind their pain. 

“Our blood,” Rossi quoted from his spot behind her shoulder. “She told him about the other boys. That doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not?” Garcia asked, keeping her voice quiet. 

“We profiled Farlet as someone who didn’t care about the kids. She abandoned Joshua to a slow, painful death but didn’t stick around to watch. All she wanted from them is their-”

“Blood,” Garcia said. 

“Exactly,” Rossi continued, “Why would she talk to them, tell them what was happening? That would indicate she took pleasure in their fear.”

“Tell me,” Garcia said, voice sliding to a higher pitch, “How does this help Hotch and Reid?” 

“Victimology,” Rossi said, taking a seat on the edge of Garcia’s desk. “We need to know why they picked Farlet.”

Rossi was trying to be nice, Garcia knew. It didn’t make his glossing over the harsher details any less hurtful. “You mean we need to know why they picked Farlet and us,” she said. 

Rossi blinked and his frown lines grew deeper. “Garcia, if you were abducted and got out unscathed, would you refer to yourself as one of the abductor's victims?”

“No,” Garcia said, turning to look at Rossi. 

“Then why did Will say ‘ _our_ blood?’”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once started, Will could not be stopped. His descriptions of both car and unsubs were childish, but offered enough detail for Garcia to start a search, if she’d had anything to search.

Sensing the beginnings of something he would be no help in, Rossi drifted off, presumably to alert the others to the new question Will’s words had raised. 

“They were really tall and -and they knew Miss Jannet could do magic.”

“It was a weird looking car, I think it was way old. And black.”

“I don’t know how old they were, they were adults.”

Garcia had to make a conscious effort not to let her dark mood find a target in Will. He was a child, it wasn’t his fault that his answers couldn’t help much. 

“Have you checked the footage from the gas station?” officer Stark asked, coming up to peer at the list of old black cars she was about to print out for Will. 

“Which one? There aren’t any in the area,” Garcia said, pulling up a map just in case she had somehow missed one. No gas stations.

“Nearest one is a stone’s toss from Miner’s Folly,” Officer Stark said, gesturing towards another small town almost an hour away. “All the folks around here use it, probably all the visitors too.”

“You,” Garcia said, “are a genius.”

“It’s just thinking about things,” Stark said, “the local gossips can do it better than me.”

“I’m just going to do this,” Garcia said, the clicks of her keyboards blurring into a hum, “...and find that...and...and done.” She looked up to the largest screen of her collection.

The screen was dominated by a greytone recording of a gas station. Garcia had been lucky, the surveillance provider was one who uploaded their videos directly to the cloud. Better yet, Garcia already knew how to get through their security.

Garcia started the recording, timestamps proving a picture was taken every half minute. Silently, Morgan drifted over to sit beside her, eyes not leaving the flickering screen. Everytime an older black car appeared, Garcia took a screenshot and noted down the time. 

They were going through the images in reverse order, so every moment Garcia was waiting to see Reid’s familiar hair appear in the backseat of a car. As the first few minutes passed, the expectation faded. By the time the photos switched to infra-red, she had to pause, scrubbing at her eyes, to start a new program. 

The program was designed to filter out duplicate images, so no time would be wasted watching the empty station. It was more efficient, but it meant every second the possibility of finding something was decreasing faster than before.

“Hey, baby girl,” Morgan said, “Why don’t you take a break, give your eyes a rest. I can watch this for a bit.” His shoulders were set stiff in a way that made Garcia stand up without argument. Morgan didn’t do well with waiting, he needed something to do, no matter how frustrating.

“Sure thing,” Garcia said, rising to go find a fresh pot of coffee for the team. She could use the feeling of accomplishing a task, however small. 

The coffee pot was across the room, all but hidden behind the BAU’s whiteboard. It was there that she saw Farlet. 

Not in the building, thankfully, but out of the window. One of the police cars had become a makeshift jail, with Farlet cuffed to the door. The woman was visibly aggravated, alternating her glare between the nearest officer and her gauze-bound hand. 

“You can’t hold me,” Farlet was saying, spittle flying. She looked tired, and human in a way that she should not have. Despite it all, her makeup was still perfect and she had found the time to scrub away the traces of flour and blood as she waited.

Garcia stared at the woman, stared at the person who had killed children, and understood why people would want to go after her. “Anyone would have reason to hate her,” she said. Then she sighed and turned back toward the whiteboard, “But hating doesn’t do anyone good.”

She pulled out her phone, and dialed a familiar number. “Hi JJ, how are you dealing?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The conversation had gone as well as could be expected. JJ was worried and Garcia was in no state to reassure her. Instead the two had gone over the profiles, Garcia searching for information on Farlet’s childhood as they went.

The two hung up with nothing but a vague sense that Farlet was still hiding something. There had been none of the usual records of Farlet, and her later life was blank in a way that suggested it was purposeful.

“Where do you go every weekend?” Garcia asked the distant shape in the police cruiser.

“No one here has the foggiest,” a voice answered. Garcia whipped around, hand rising to press against her chest.

Officer Stark looked back at her, the now familiar expression of discomfort reappearing on her face. “Sorry. Shouldn’t ta snuck up on you like that.”

“It’s okay,” Garcia said, waving a hand, “Really? No one knows?”

“We always thought she was going to visit friends or sell a piece at auction. But when we checked her phone, no contacts for friends out of state,” Officer Stark said, turning to scrub at the whiteboard. 

“Don’t do that just yet,” Rossi said, prompting Garcia to jump yet again. The yelp was all Officer Stark, Garcia told herself.

“What happened?” she asked, glancing back at the board that should have been obsolete by now.

“I was right,” Rossi sounded none too happy about the fact.

“You usually are,” Garcia said, “about what?”

“Will wasn’t talking about ‘we’ as in him and the previous murders, he was talking about him and the girl Farlet mentioned she was holding prisoner,” Rossi said.

“I’ll have my people start searching every property she might own,” Officer Stark said, and hurried off. In the direction of the nearest bathroom, Garcia noticed with a matching feeling in her own stomach. 

“Who?” Garcia asked.

“We don’t know yet,” Rossi said, “the kids never actually saw each other face to face.”

“I mean this in the best of ways,” Garcia said, “but is it possible that Will was lying? He was talking about magic earlier.” If so, it would be a time where the lie was a good thing.

“I don’t think so,” Rossi said, “Children believe in magic because the alternative is a world where bad things happen for no reason. I could begin to understand an imaginary friend, but another kid who was begging to go home and banging on the door—that sounds real.”

“What do we do?” Garcia said, “we don’t have enough people for both.”

“The other teams are busy, the big media circus with Holfman is this week, remember,” Rossi said, “They’re sending a few people from the state, but we’re on our own for at least the next three days.”

“Tell me what to do,” Garcia said, “Morgan’s watching the video, Prentiss is probably still with the Larsons, what can I do to help?”

“Take a deep breath with me,” Rossi said, a hand at her elbow guiding her into a quiet-ish corner of the hall. “Good, hold it...now let it out, slowly.”

Garcia did as she was asked, taking a seat on the nearby table, but not loosening her grip on Rossi sleeve. “Thank you,” She said.

Rossi seemed to understand what she meant. “Anytime. Feeling better?”

“Yes,” Garcia said, taking another deep breath. “I hate feeling like there’s nothing I can do.”

“So do I,” Rossi said, voice so quiet she barely caught the words. 

He went on, louder, “But there is something. Can you search for any missing persons in the area? Will said she was about his age, so probably within two years of ten.”

“I can do that,” Garcia said, looking up. She found the fresh pot of coffee, and went back to check on Morgan. She didn’t have to go far. He was on their way to them.

“I found something,” Morgan said, gesturing for the others to follow him. They did. 

The stream of images was frozen on an old classic car, something that probably had Chevy in the name. Beyond the car, a man had been captured as he dumped a fast food bag. 

His face was grainy but that could be cleaned up. What mattered was how the man was turned to face the camera, attention directed to the shadowy passenger seat. The passenger whose legs were brushing the glovebox.

“Those are some long legs, think he has the feet to match?” Morgan asked, moving aside for Garcia to take her seat.

“The pictures aren't good enough for me to get a height estimate, but I can run the driver’s face for you,” Garcia said, sniping the image to run through ViCAP. “Give it about fifteen minutes to search.

A ding interrupted her, Vicap pausing on the mugshot of a young, attractive man. “That was fast,” Morgan said. 

“The system checks for dangerous or prolific offenders first,” Garcia offered. 

Something in her voice caused the other two to rest a hand on her shoulder, a tiny gesture of comfort that didn’t seem to help. But maybe it helped them.

“Dean Winchester, deceased,” Rossi read, “How accurate would you say this thing is?”

“With the footage we got, probably about a ninety-four percent certainty,” Garcia said, “He’s dead?”

Morgan looked closer at the attacked folder, “Died around a year ago, booked for...oh, no.”

“What?” Rossi said, catching Prentiss’ eye.

“Booked for attacking a police officer he claimed was a vampire, both he and the officer died right afterwards,” Garcia said, opening a second page for known associates.

“Didn’t we consult on that case?” Rossi asked.

“Winchester was dead before anything could happen, but JJ got a request for a retroactive profile,” Garcia said, “I remember Reid mentioned that case, he spent the next week reading up on how the perception of vampires has shifted over the last century.”

“The passenger?” Morgan asked, as if speaking would distract them from the mention of Reid.

Garcia gestured to the new page, “In all likelihood, his brother, Samuel Winchester.”

“If it is them, Hotch and Reid are in more danger than we thought,” Rossi said.

“What do you know?” Morgan asked, eyes not leaving the scant reports on the Winchester brothers.

“I dealt with their father, back before either of you joined. He’d been indicated in every crime there is, short of sex crimes, but he always skipped town before anything had a chance to catch up,” Rossi said.

“Does every crime include child abuse?” Morgan wanted to know.

“Yes.” Garcia said, Rossi’s answer overlapping hers. She gestured for him to go first.

“There were reports of the kids showing up injured or with signs of malnutrition, but nothing came of them because they moved around so much. A few times he left them in a motel while he went out of state,” Rossi said. “All experiences that would make forming bonds outside the family difficult.”

“Worse, he was insane,” Garcia said, “and not the good, fun kind. He thought the world was filled with monsters, and a teacher reported Sam telling her that it was their job to hunt them.”

“Well, it looks like growing up didn’t change that,” Morgan said. “Since they tried to kill Farlet.”

“Is there any chance this is just a coincidence, and it isn’t them?” Garcia asked, opening a tab of crime scene photos, only to close it.

“The odds are not good,” Rossi admitted. “Ah, Prentiss, you heard everything?”

“Farlet’s holding a second kid and we think brother serial killers went after her?” Prentiss said.

“...yes,” Rossi said.

“We need to know what they’re likely to do next,” Prentiss said. “Garcia, have there been any attempts at communication?”

“No,” Garcia said, “But it’s not dark yet.” She ignored the fact that the rays lighting the room were some of the day’s last.

“Reid probably recognized them,” Morgan said. “Would that change things?”

“That’s the thing about delusions,” Prentiss said, “they’re hard to predict.”

“But we know Reid,” Morgan said, “and he knows enough mythology to pick up on whatever the Winchesters might think; he can use that to his advantage.”

“Or they might not have to worry about that,” Rossi said. “The Winchesters are rather unique, the father at least, he was organized enough to commit crimes right under the noses of state police and small town busybodies. They went after Farlet, right?”

“Yes,” Prentiss said.

“What if they did what Will did, decided she could do magic? Like a witch or something. And when they were interrupted they took our agents because they needed it to escape, not because they wanted to,” Rossi said.

“Then they might be safe, at least until their delusion evolves,” Morgan said. The agents had forgotten Garcia was there, conversing over her head as she worked. Garcia followed the conversation of course, but had kept her focus elsewhere.

“Dean was injured,” she said upon reading his blood type in the autopsy report. “The A-positive blood spatter, it was his.”

She hadn’t expected the sharp intake of breath from the agents. “What? Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Not entirely,” Rossi said, “If Dean is injured, Samuel is likely to direct all of his attention and efforts towards Dean.”

“Which is good because it means Hotch and Reid have a better chance of escaping, and they will probably be ignored as much as possible,” Morgan said.

“However, Samuel will probably be far less tolerant because of stress and both brothers will be far more aggressive than normal,” Prentiss said, “Since the one who hurt Dean is currently out of their grasp.”

“Hotch and Reid are smart, though,” Rossi cut in, “so long as the brother’s believe they’re human, I have faith that Hotch and Reid can keep themselves safe.”

“How?” Garcia demanded to know.

“A few ways,” Prentiss said, “Remember, the brothers probably think they’re protecting people from monsters, people like Reid and Hotch.”

“That’s not something Hotch and Reid can control?” Garcia said, looking up at Prentiss.

“But it means when our agents try to escape, they are unlikely to be endangering themselves more,” Prentiss said, “because the Winchesters have made a big deal about how they only hunt monsters.” Prentiss tapped the report on Dean Winchester.

“They won’t start thinking Hotch and Reid are monsters, will they?” Garcia asked, voice breaking as each profiler looked away in turn.

“With a psychosis like the Winchesters’, we can’t be sure,” Rossi finally said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And...another chapter is out. You didn't think I was done with Farlet, did you? Nope, nothing here is easy for any of our monster hunters, be they human monsters or not. As a side note, many of the techniques used in this chapter, blood typing, spatter analysis, linguistic analysis, etc. would be used in an actual investigation (with less certainty than pop culture presents, of course).
> 
> Hope you enjoyed. Remember, comments make me happy, and when I am happy, I feel like writing.


	5. Chapter 5

“They’re not monsters, Dean,” Sam said, hauling another shovel of dirt up and away from the chilly soil. “So you could stand to ease up on the threatening.”

“Be nicer to the people who think we’re murderers?” Dean scoffed, “That sounds right—not.” He winced at the last word, empty hand rising to rub at his mouth. 

“This sucks,” he said. Sam nodded. 

“Welp, ready to go deal with our new not-monster guests?” Dean said, turning away from the pit in the ground to where the car was parked. 

“You said guests,” Sam echoed, “Do you think the curse is running out of power?”

“Well, they’re close enough to guests, I can call them that. Unwanted ones mostly,” Dean said, “It’s not like I hate their guts.”

“Well, in that case, it won’t hurt you to be nicer,” Sam said, starting off on the trail to the car. Dean took a few jogging steps to catch up.

“My job is to protect people, not be nice to them,” Dean said, grunting as he heaved his shovel behind a tree, hidden unless one knew where to look. Sam added his own shovel to the pile.

They reached the impala together, quieting as they saw the agent’s heads huddled together. 

“This really sucks,” Sam said, slowing to cover Dean as he reached the car. 

“Time to go,” the older Winchester said, swinging a back door open. Sam was not expecting the response that earned. The shorter agent, the one that looked like he should still be in college, flung himself back, twisting around his bound hands to sit in the middle of the bench seat, as far away as he could get. Behind him, the other agent had tensed, the corner of his mouth edging into a snarl.

“Why do you want to kill us?” the first agent asked, bits of a pen clenched tightly in one hand.

“We don’t,” Sam said, pulling Dean back a step. “Why do you think we do?”

Neither agent spoke and neither agent took their eyes off of the brothers. Dean shuffled his feet, wiping a free free hand against his trousers. 

“Look, we know this sucks, and all we want-” Dean had to pause again. “We don’t mean you any harm, we simply need a short head start before you and your buddies start looking for us again.”

“A grace period to get uncursed,” Sam said. “And yes, we know you think we’re crazy. But trust us, we like this about as much as you do. So would you be willing to just go along with us for a few days?”

The agents relaxed a bit, willing to look at each other for the first time since the door opened. “If you don’t mean us harm,” a pause there, “Why do you want us to go with you into an empty forest at night?”

“Because the car doesn’t sleep four,” Sam said, several things settling into place. “Haven’t you ever been camping before?”

“No,” the agents said, but they stopped leaning back like their lives depended on it. “What was the shovel for?”

“Well,” Dean said, “when camping in a place like this, with all the twigs and dead leaves on the ground, there are a few obvious reasons to want a shovel. Like a cleared fire pit.” 

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


There were several concerns that needed to be dealt with as Sam walked into the rough campsite they’d scraped together. Some were of a human nature, like the need to ensure the agents didn’t try to attack them in their sleep. Some were of a nature nature, as the nights were dangerously cold. And some were of a monstrous nature, like the protective wards the needs to put up. 

“Shoes, please,” Sam asked, solving the first problem. The agents, whose names he really needed to learn, frowned. 

“Would you be willing to explain why?” the agent with the Doctor Who socks asked. 

“Sure,” Sam started, “well, um, we need to set up the camp some more, and if we want to finish before dark that means we can’t try to watch you at the same time. So if you would take off your shoes, and maybe watch the fire for a bit,” Sam trailed off into a miserable silence. 

“Sure,” the younger agent said, friendly tone at odds with the way he kept his back angled away from Sam. 

“Thanks, um,” Sam paused, calling the man agent would be weird, and probably worry their guests, but asking for a name wasn’t much better when they thought it was a psycho asking. 

“Spencer Reid,” the agent offered, turning to dart a glance at the other agent, “and Aaron Hotchner.”

“Right, thank you,” Sam said, taking the pairs of shoes he was given. “Um,” he made a vague gesture towards where Dean was setting the first pieces of kindling alight.

Spencer and Aaron went, thank somebody, and Sam most definitively did not flee the other direction. No, he just walked to the far side of the camp and started to carve the usual camping wards into bark. 

Admittedly, he did wince a little, at the way both agents went taunt at the sight of the rather large knife he was using. Or perhaps it was at the symbols.

But they were not about to run, so Sam let it go, carving a simple set of five basic wards into every few trees around their camp. Well over half way around, he ran into Dean, who had begun to work the other way round.

“You want the good news or the bad news?” he asked, waving a phone at Sam.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, darting a glance back at the now crackling fire.

“Bobby called, said he found us a haunting,” Dean said. “Oh, and the bad news is he wants to yell at us in person.”

“I imagine the haunting is close,” Sam said, flicking his knife shut, “And somewhere our guests won’t get in the way.”

“Three counties over, middle of nowhere,” Dean said, tossing his phone over. “I haven’t read any of the details yet.”

“Last night a Mr. Samson was admitted to the hospital after a chandelier fell on him out of nowhere, and the other Mr. Samson mentioned the new banister they had installed had fallen apart, giving him a nasty tumble,” Sam said, scrolling down through the email.

“Ouch,” Dean said, “What about the missus?”

For that, Sam had to stop and marvel at his brother’s obliviousness. “Dean, I just told you the  _ other _ Mr. Samson was also hurt, what did you think I meant?”

Sam was rewarded for his words with the sight of Dean going red, heel scuffing the ground before he abruptly turned and made for the rough sleeping spots Sam had found. They were just slight hollows in the ground, useless against the cold until a lean-to of leaves and tree branches was built over it.

Weighing the odds of one of their guests trying something, Sam hurried back towards the car, pausing to add the shoes to the pile of shovels before he reached the car. Once there, he found the cooler and a bit of spare red cord to replace the broken handle. 

“Un,” he grunted, hoisting the cooler up and beginning the trek back. The sun had sunk further, rays of light falling near horizontally through the forest. Twice he had to retie the makeshift handle on the cooler. It really had been a while since they last had to rough it on the side of a road.

Speaking of roughing it, their dinner prospects were not looking all that good. All they had in the car were a few drinks and a handful of the granola bars that you can never get rid of because no one wants to eat them.

“...and that’s how you keep from freezing your balls off without a sleeping bag,” Dean said, words carrying over to Sam as he approached the firepit. Dean had the first shelter up, branches covering the windward side and leaves providing insulation from the still half frozen ground.

The agents’ lean-to on the other hand was looking...ragged. Dean had lashed together the basic frame, but the branches had been laid by an inexpert hand that would have them settling down in the night to leave the occupants exposed. The leaves themselves were mixed with enough pinecones and twigs that the hard packed soil might be more comfortable.

“Dinner,” Sam said, plunking the cooler down and grabbing a beer before Dean could claim it. Dean perked right up, hurrying over and filching a beer and the half full bag of jerky.

The agents looked up as well, but hesitated in a manner than nearly had Sam losing his appetite. “You too, come grab something,” he said, pulling out their “kitchen knife” before stepping back to give the others room.

Aaron came over first, carefully selecting a bottle of water and a handful of granola bars from the meager offerings. Spencer did the same, face carefully smooth as he saw the options.

“Thank you,” Spencer said, his voice so very sincere that Sam twitched. The other man was a practiced liar. So was Sam, admittedly, but this  _ felt _ different. Sam lied because he had to, Spencer was lying because—because he felt he had to, Sam realized all too easily.

Sam was spared further unpleasant considerations by a choked sound from Dean. Turning, he saw what appeared to be the bottom half of a jungle cockroach sticking out of his brother’s mouth. As he watched, the thing was spat out, landing in the fire with a hiss. 

Dean swished his mouth out with a sip of beer, a move he repeated several times before speaking. “What the hell?”

“Oops,” Sam muttered, wisely moving a few steps away. 

“Oops?” Dean echoed, “Why would you say  _ oops _ to the cockroach that was in my jerky?”

“In my defence, it was a plastic cockroach,” Sam said, “And it’s been in there a few days now.”

“What kind of man puts bugs in another man’s meat?” Dean asked. 

“What kind of man doesn’t notice the difference between meat and plastic?” Sam replied.

“Oh, Samantha, it is on,” Dean said, “I was prepared to call it even, but now, well, it’s going to look like I was just warming up.”

“I thought it was going to look like you would be checking every bite of food for the next week or so,” Sam said, already bracing himself for the wrestling match that was sure to follow his words.

Dean was not about to disappoint, right up until Sam caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye. It was Aaron, who’d taken a protective step in front of Spencer as Dean stood up.

The reminder of their guests had Sam deflating, sinking back onto the cooler lid and waiting for the jittery anticipation of a friendly wrestling match to go away. Dean looked much the same, abandoning his jerky to stalk behind the agents and start fixing up their lean-to.

Tuning out the sound of Dean’s unintelligible muttering, Sam hurried to choke down his last stale granola bar and start up his phone, running through the local newspapers for anything he could find on the Samsons.

Unsurprisingly, there was not much on the men, a few local gossip columns on a rude sister trying to cancel the wedding, but that was about it. Their injuries were documented in the local doctor’s records, but aside from a few bruises, both men had been well enough to return home that day.

It was a quick check on the weather than decided it for Sam. Both accidents had taken place on days a good ten degrees colder than the surrounding ones. By the time his phone opened a low battery message, Sam was yawning and the text had started to blur.

A quick flick of his eyes told him that Dean had finished with the second lean-to and was pointing at the first with the smile he generally reserved for grandmothers and bakers. Whatever he had said, it had the agents moving into the more sturdy lean-to and pulling the blankets close.

Standing, Sam took the opportunity to join Dean, nodding in a wordless question at the makeshift bandage around his calf. Dean nodded and took a seat on the cooler, stretching out his leg. “Doesn’t hurt that much, think it just went through the skin.”

Sam nodded, wetting the fabric just enough to peel it away from Dean’s skin. It really wasn’t that bad, the knife had been the thin, fancy kind that probably had some esoteric use no one really cared about. As a result, the cuts were disarmingly small, looking more like an angry cat had caught Deans’ calf than a knife had gone through it.

“You were right,” Sam said, “Just a few scratches, there’s no need for stitches unless you’re worried about the scar.”

“What’s one more scar,” Dean said, fiddling with the cooler as Sam rewrapped the wound. “What did you find on Casper the not so friendly ghost?”

“Well, he definitely exists and has tried to kill them twice now,” Sam said.

“So,” Dean said, “how long will it take us to get there and gank it?”

“You want to go on a hunt with two federal agents in the backseat?” Sam asked, “Have you even considered how that might work?”

“We’ve gone on hunts with worse in the backseat,” Dean said.

“Monster parts don’t count,” Sam said, “Also, have you thought about what happens even if they aren’t endangered?”

“Sure,” Dean said.

“All this time you’ve been telling me that my plan to make a website where people can find trustworthy information is shitty, and now you want to throw them into the deep end, after we’ve already kidnapped them?” Sam said, jerking Dean’s pant-leg down over the bandage.

“I already told you I thought your plan was bad, and don’t even try to compare it to risking two people who  _ might  _ find out the truth so that we can save two other peoples’  _ lives.” _

“No you just want to risk who knows how many people’s lives by keeping them in the dark once they learn the truth,” Sam said.

“Good night, Sam,” Dean said, and refused to talk any more.

So, with time for rest ticking by, Sam got ready to sleep, picking out the worst of the pinecones and twigs. It wasn’t until he was almost asleep that the off feeling about their conversation resolved itself. Dean never had said if he still thought the website was a bad idea.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  
  


Sam’s watch had passed uneventfully; he’d seen one of the agents, Spencer, look out of their lean-to a few times, but each time Sam had added a few more logs to the fire, and either the better lighting or the reminder Sam was watching had him lying back down. Sam hoped it was the better lighting.

The morning was also quiet, the grumpy sort that comes from poor sleep and tasteless food. They were going to have to restock very soon, Sam thought, as he scraped the last few spoonfuls of peanut butter out of the decimated jar. 

It was later, after they had packed up the camp and gotten everybody into the car, that Dean brought up the hunt.

“So, Sammy, why don’t you tell them what we’re doing today,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the road in front of him.

“Tell them yourself,” Sam said, frowning at the tension and fear Spencer couldn't’ quite conceal. His brother, the jerk, did no such thing, letting the silence go on until Sam had to speak.

“We found a haunting last night, so we have to go make sure the ghost is put to rest before it starts killing people,” Sam said, bracing himself for the inevitable disbelief. Indeed, for almost a minute the car was silent.

“...Okay,” said Spencer, picking his way through his words in a manner just shy of insulting, “How did you figure out it was a ghost?”

“Well, the couple who lived in the house were both admitted to the hospital sometime in the last week for pieces of their house falling apart, despite the house being new. Chandeliers falling on people is a ghost classic. So I looked into it some more, learned their homophobic sister-in-law died a couple of months ago —it’s easy to know what to look for, once you’ve done it enough.”

“And we know you don’t believe a word of this,” Dean cut in, “So you can stop talking out your ass.”

Both agents stiffened at the reminder, but only Aaron was looking up. Spencer had a hand to his temple, eyes squinted in the late dawn light. 

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” Aaron said, once he caught Sam watching them, face as impassive as always. 

“I like that quote,” Dean said, “I’m going to steal it.”

“What’s wrong with him,” Sam asked, ignoring the new instance of stupidity from his brother. Spencer was looking far worse than a night of roughing it should allow. 

“Caffeine withdrawal,” Spencer said, looking up at Sam with a face that fought to avoid a grimace at the early morning light. “I drink a lot of coffee, normally.”

“No kidding,” Dean said. “Well, tell you what, after we take care of the In-law from hell, we’ll find you some coffee. Deal?”

“Deal?” Spencer said, more question than answer. But Dean turned the music up, so Sam assumed it was good enough for him. Of course, there hadn’t really been a way for Spencer to refuse -Sam cut the thought short.

“How does one kill a ghost?” Aaron asked, with suspiciously good timing. Sam knew the basics of what the FBI did, and they were making this too easy. Every time Sam felt uncomfortable, one of the agents jumped in to distract him. No one should be this laissez faire about being abducted or monsters or anything else the Winchester luck could summon.

“You can’t kill a ghost,” Dean said, “they’re already dead.”

“So what do you do?” Spencer asked, “Is it a consoling ceremony of some sort?”

“Ha,” Dean laughed, “Hope, consoling the ghost only works if the ghost is nice and wants to move on. Most ghosts you need to find their body, and burn it to send the spirit on.”

“You think it was the sister-in-law,” Spencer said, the first sentence he’d uttered that had not come out a question.

“Fits, she’s recently deceased, has a reputation for trying to attack her brother’s husband at the wedding. If she’s buried nearby that’s the sort of thing that would make a ghost, unfinished business and all.” He paused, “I’m not saying it’s something that is worth sticking around to mess up, understand, just that the evil sister won’t let it go.”

The car lapsed back into awkward silence, the rural roads offering a merciful respite in the vaguely interesting views of old A-frame farmhouses every few miles. They were almost there and should arrive before the ghost made her next move.

  
  
  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  
  


Somehow, they had made it all the way to Samsons’ farm before noticing that the agents were not, in fact, in any way restrained. Sam blamed it on the lack of sleep, Dean blamed it on Sam, and the both of them got out of the car to find the handcuffs again.

They were bent over the Impala’s boot, Dean pulling out the salt rounds when it happened. Not only had they failed to restrain the agents, but they had failed to keep an eye on them. There was the click of a door swinging open, not hard enough to damage it, thank someone, and the agents were pelting down the gravel drive, seemingly ignorant of the shoes Sam was still holding in one hand.

“Shit,” said Dean, slamming the lid shut with more than the necessary force. They’d parked close to the house, only a row of overgrown bushes blocking them from view. By some quirk of fate, or more likely, good planning, both brothers had their hands full, halfway changed into more professional attire when the agents had taken their chance.

The result: neither Sam nor Dean were quite fast enough to make up for the head start, and Sam reached the base of the porch steps right as the door was slammed shut behind Spencer.

“Damn country folk never locking their doors,” Dean said, “what do we do now?”

“You’re the bo-” Sam felt the sentence slip out of his control and improvised. “We need to hurry, before they upset the ghost.”

“Or call the police,” Dean said, doubling back to grab his sawed-off. “Did you find what our ghostie might be tied to?”

“Not yet, I was hoping the Samsons would tell us. I checked, they were the only family the sister from hell had.”

“Great,” Dean said. He pulled out a lockpickr’s kit out and crouched down in front of the farm door, pausing as they heard the muffled sound of voices. It sounded like the agents were trying to get the Samsons upstairs while they stayed behind to barricade the door. 

“I’ll check the windows,” Sam said, loud enough for those inside to hear.

“Upstairs, now,” he heard Aaron say before a dull thud of furniture hitting floorboards reached them.

It was a long minute later when the lock clicked open, Dean clambering back to let the door swing in. It was a tactical thing, a front door swings inwards so that snow or a heavy package on the doormat cannot trap a family inside. Of course, it also meant that front doors were easily barricaded from the inside. In this case, the door swung a measly two feet before connecting with a rather tall bookcase, only one end of which was still in its original place against the wall.

“Ladies first,” Dean said, looking at the small space between the doorknob and door frame. 

“Then go ahead Dean,” Sam said, noting his successful allusion for when Bobby asked about the curse.

Dean pulled himself up, feet seemingly melding into the ground, and gestured for Sam to go first.

_ Crash. Bang. Shatter.  _ It sounded like someone was wrecking the kitchen.

Their time had run out, so with a glare Dean moved in, wincing at the squeeze. Sam followed, firearm trained at the floor. The front entry was empty, aside from a few books that had probably been lost when the bookcase was shifted. Further into the house was a staircase, the banister along the upper portion a splintered mess.

A quick check in the room to their left revealed the hole in the ceiling where a chandelier could have hung. Dean took the lead, inching down the hallway towards where shards of a decorative plate had spilled across the doorway. 

Together, they waited right outside the doorway, waiting for a sound, smell, or shiver down their spine to warn them of danger. When nothing happened, Dean risked entering the room, Sam close behind.

For the second time in as many days, the brothers stood in a kitchen absolutely coated in flour. The difference might have easily been missed, but for one detail. There were no footprints leading away from the empty flour bag sitting dead center on the kitchen floor.

“I’ve never seen a ghost do this before,” Dean said, looking around the kitchen. The four had been new, but judging by the chocolate chips that had bounced all over the floor and the other materials sitting on the counter, the flour had been out when the ghost entered the kitchen.

“Who makes cookies at seven in the morning?” Sam wanted to know.

“Awesome people,” Dean said, cutting across the room to peek in the oven. It was empty.

“Well, those awesome people are probably our only hope of figuring out what the ghost is tethered to, so,” Sam waved his hand up, towards the second floor. “Let’s go ask them.”

“How about you ask them, since our guests are terrified of me,” Dean said. 

“That’s not true,” Sam started. 

“I have a curse on me that says it’s true,” Dean interrupted. “And you didn’t see them last night, I swear the younger one was watching me the whole time.”

“Spencer?” Sam asked, “He was awake the whole time I was on watch.”

“Perks of being a senior agent?” Dean suggested. 

“Hmm,” Sam said, leading the way back into the front hall. 

He’d made it a good four or five paces into the room when the temperature dropped, his breath becoming a foggy vapor between one exhale and the next. He looked up, just in time to catch Dean’s eyes widen as he saw something behind Sam. 

By the time Sam learned what that was, it was too late to avoid. The bookshelf came toppling down, the few books still on the shelves falling around Sam like hail. 

It was a chair that saved him, stoutly built and somehow in the right position to catch the bookcase before it crushed him flat. Thus, while Sam’s head should have been, by all rights, a bloody smear, it was instead very much capable of turning to look at his legs. Legs which were also not bloody smears. 

“I can’t move but I’m not hu-” Sam said, the final part coming out silently. “I’m not injured.”

“You’re hurt,” Dean said, from the relative safety of the doorway. “How bad?”

“Might have a bruise or two,” Sam said, which was technically true, despite being an absolute lie. His whole body ached from hitting the ground, palms stinging from slapping the ground. And he  _ might _ be bruised already.

“Can you get this thing off me?” he asked, tilting his head back to see the larger room. All he could see was a stretch of ugly grey-green carpeting and Dean’s shoes. 

“That’s gonna have to wait a second,” Dean said, followed by the sound of a shotgun firing. There was silence for a moment. 

If Sam were in a philosophical state of mind, he would have been pondering how silence could be more terrifying than the worst howl or squelch. As he was not in a philosophical state of mind, he was focusing on Dean’s shoes as they took a sharp step the-hell-away-from-that. 

“Shit,” Dean said, taking another few steps back, closer to Sam, “salt isn’t working.”

From the hall beyond Dean, there came the noise of something clattering, and then an inhuman shriek. 

“What’s going on?” Sam asked, shoving at the bookcase. The shelf gave, lifting off of the pegs supporting it to slide out, landing an inch above Sam’s head. Carefully, Sam stopped trying to push against the next shelf, the one braced against the chair.

“Not to jinx us, but Casper dropped a pot like it was burning. I think iron still works,” Dean said, dropping his currently useless shotgun to start shoving at the bookcase. It creaked, gave a warning groan, and another shelf slid loose, hitting the floor a ways shy of Dean’s foot. Dean still flinched.

“I’m stuck,” Sam said, before Dean could try again, “It’s going to be bad if any more shelves fall.” 

“Just great,” Dean said, but he let go of the bookcase.

“What now?” Sam asked, noticing that his voice had slipped into silence. And because of good old pressure on the chest this time, not the curse. Because of course the shelf that was currently preventing his shins from being shattered was pressing on his chest. With Winchester luck he shouldn’t have expected any better.

“Here,” Dean said, “take this.” Dean’s iron piping, a short eight inch piece with a carabiner for carrying on a belt loop, rolled into Sam’s hand.

“Where are you going?” Sam asked, avoiding the real question of  _ are you  _ sure  _ it works?  _

“Upstairs,” Dean said, “to talk to the Samsons.”

“What am I supposed to do then?” Sam asked, Dean’s feet already moving towards the bottom stair Sam could just see in the corner of his eye.

“Not get killed,” Dean said, before he disappeared and left Sam alone with the angry ghost.

There was a time for the rash and a time for the logical. Sam did the latter, doing absolutely nothing but breathing as he waited to see if the ghost could find him. It was a coin toss really, what a ghost could or could not see.

For once, Sam’s luck held. The ghost knew he was there, the chill and the random flipping of a book's pages indoors told him that much. But something, be it the veil between life and death or the simple bookcase covering Sam, was keeping it from noticing Sam.

_ Plink, thud. Plink thud.  _

The next sound was not one Sam associated with ghosts. It was mechanical, something rocketing free before hitting a soft material. It wasn’t until he felt a poke in his back, that Sam understood.

The ghost might not see him, but it knew where he was, and could interact with the house at will. That included the floorboards, and every one of the steel nails that was popping free only for its momentum to be lost when the flat nailhead hit the thick carpet.

Near the bottom of the stairs, a bit of ugly carpet drooped, preceded by the clatter of wood landing in what was probably the farmhouse cellar. The whole goddamn floor was going to follow it.

“Dean,” Sam bellowed, ignoring the pain in his chest and the fuzzy halos around the lights as he struggled to replace his expelled air.

The ghost had heard that, the odd nail hitting the carpet beneath him growing to feel like every nail in the house. 

“One minute,” Dean hollered, strained voicing carrying down the stairs. The nails paused. 

Before they could start up, Sam shifted the piping to his other hand, took aim, and threw, sending the iron piece flying. It hit the far corner of the bookcase with a loud clang, metal falling to land near the bookcase’s base on the far side. 

That worked, the ghost immediately switching to tearing up the floor there, leaving Sam to wait.

In his introductory physics course, the professor had given his students a wooden fulcrum, a yardstick and several weights, challenging them to create the most outrageous balance with the materials. The professor had demonstrated it to the class first, setting it up over a snoozing student’s head, leaving him inches away from a rude awakening that never happened.

Sam was attempting something similar. Once the floorboards on the opposite side gave way, the bookcase would sink down on that side, consequently creating a new fulcrum on the edge of the hole which would have the near side rising to release him. 

It worked, the bookcase shifting just enough for Sam to roll free, body mercifully void of any sharp pains.

“I know where-” Dean’s voice said, coming from above a still rolling Sam. He barely had time to remember being at the base of the stairs was bad before he was falling, a pile of cardboard boxes breaking his fall.

Cardboard was a better landing than many Sam had experienced. He rolled off the boxes of tinsel and who knows what else to survey where he had landed. The basement was organized, boxes along the wall and in neat lines across the floor. 

Above him, Dean was outlined looking down through the floor, his posture visibly relaxing when he saw Sam was alright. “Look for an urn, probably on top of one of the boxes along the edge of the room.”

Sam glanced around. “Found it.”

“That was too easy,” Dean said.

Sam opened the urn, “Um, it’s already full of ashes,” he said, “how are we supposed to burn the bones?”

Dean never got the chance to respond, a patch of blurred air moving forward and throwing him against the wall. And then the other wall.

After the third wall, Sam forced his attention back onto the urn. As Dean yelled ablove him, he set it down and began digging through the boxes, looking for one with kitchen supplies. He found it at the end of the row, and dumped it out, the clatter it made almost drowning another thump from above him.

Digging through the mess, Sam found it, a colander with a broken handle. Taking that and the box back with him, he started setting up.

Box under the colander, colander under the urn. Shake the urn and hope like hell there are some bone fragments that survived the cremation. After the unn was empty, he checked the colander. Three shards of bone, each smaller than a pinky-nail, sat there.

In his pocket, the bottle of gasoline and a lighter. Above him, Dean yelled, and Sam looked up in time to see him fly through the half collapsed railing and land sprawled on the staircase.

He poured the gas into the colander, oops. Before it had a chance to drain, Sam flipped the colander over, swapping everything into the urn. The mouth was too narrow for his hand to fit, so he dropped the lit lighter inside. 

It caught.

Above him, the floorboard nails stilled, and Dean scooted down the stairs until he was sitting above Sam.

“Good job,” Dean said, “Ready to go deal with the agents?”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the Winchester luck strikes again. Hope you enjoyed and as always, please let me know what worked well so I can write more of that.
> 
> Anyone care to guess what our poor agents are making of this?


	6. Chapter 6

The morning had started off better than Reid had anticipated, which was to say, they were both alive and unharmed. He’d stayed awake all night, not willing to risk Hotch’s concussion turning out to be worse than assumed. Between the dark woods beyond the fire, and the knowledge that a serial killer was watching him, sleep had not been a concern. Morning brought with it a deep exhaustion, but nothing worse. The brothers had even forgotten to restrain the agents as they got into the car.

When the Winchesters revealed that they were going to hunt a ghost, Reid didn’t know if he should be relieved or terrified. When they explained that the solution was to dig up a grave, he decided on relieved. 

Graves meant people, they meant a chance to escape, and most importantly they meant the Winchesters wouldn’t be targeting a living person. It also explained the series of grave desecrations that had been linked to the family over the years. That had been bugging Reid. Normally when an unsub desecrated a grave, it was with the intent to hide a second body in the plot.

“So, Spencer, Aaron,” Dean was saying, “It’s time for you to come out now. We’ve taken care of the ghost.”

Reid looked behind him, to where Hotch was wrestling with an old turn dial phone. The Samsons were old, well into their nineties, and hadn’t ever felt the need to turn their never used landlines in for an actual phone. At the moment, the couple was further back, hiding in the closet.

“Sorry, I don’t think that is a good idea,” Reid said, “It’s not too late though, let us go and I will personally ensure you can visit whatever place you want.”

“Right after you arrest us,” Dean said, “Not happening.”

Behind him, something snapped into place, Hotch sitting back as Reid switched places with him.

“Look,” Sam tried, “We all know how this is going to go, so why don’t you spare everyone the waiting and just open the door.”

Reid looked back at the phone’s rotary dial, tracing down to where a stray gear had, through years of gentle use, chewed through the wire. “I can fix it,” he whispered, “I just need a little bit more time.”

“How do we know there won’t be any consequences,” Hotch asked. Reid frowned at that word, consequences. It was the right one to use—neutral and unlikely to give the Winchesters any new ideas. However, it revealed precisely how helpless the agents were, that their escape attempt was already so doomed that they had given up the possibility of success.

“There won’t be any conse-” Sam started, voice cutting out halfway through.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Dean said, “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“What was Sam going to say?” Hotch asked, raising his voice to cover the sound of Reid snapping a bit of plastic to use as a makeshift knife. 

Reid used the knife to strip the broken wires, and wrap the bare ends around each other before dialing a familiar number. The speaker was broken but the microphone would still carry sound to their team. Or so Reid desperately hoped.

“He was saying there wouldn’t be any consequences,” Dean said, “now open the door.”

“Will there be?” Reid asked, spotting the suspicious phrasing. “Consequences, I mean.”

“Yes,” Dean said, “I mean, well, yes, but not because we want to hurt you. We just need to make sure you can’t share our information until later.”

His words were followed by a scraping sound that was all too recognizable. The Winchesters had a history of breaking and entering and a mere bedroom lock would barely slow  _ Reid _ down.

“We’re coming in,” Sam said, “I suggest you take a step back.”

The fact that the Samson’s were listening in from their hiding spot in the closet complicated things. Both Hotch and himself had been taking care to avoid any sensitive topics that might give the Winchesters a reason to notice them. Dean had already proven to not believe that evidence could point to him, with the story of the vampire, so shouting their destination into the receiver would be ignored as a trick but the Samsons would hear.

They should have mentioned the Winchesters destination earlier, Reid realized, but it hadn’t seemed quite as important when they were trying to get them hidden and then, later, convince them to tell Dean where the sister’s ashes were.

A glance at Hotch told Reid he’d thought through the same information, and the two agents moved together closer to the center of the room. Another silent exchange had them sinking down to sit cross-legged on the worn carpet. Most people would balk at shooting someone who was so obviously unprepared to fight. Just in case, Reid tossed a random blanket over the phone, to hide it from sight.

Then again, most people didn’t believe they could kill ghosts. As Reid clasped his hands loosely in his lap, the Winchesters forced the door open. To his surprise, neither killer was holding a gun. Sam had what looked like a pipe in one hand, and Dean was empty-handed. 

Both were visibly relieved to see the agents seated, which was reassuring, in a macabre way. Nothing like knowing one’s captor didn’t want to hurt them, but would do so anyways. 

“Easy,” Dean said, and Reid noticed that Hotch had tensed up, hands curling into fists. Hotch’s face, however, was calm, friendly almost, and that was bad. Psychopaths were far better at reading body language that the average person. And Reid still hadn’t figured out what exactly was keeping Dean from deciding that killing them would be easier.

“If you make this easy, we’ll see if the Samsons would be willing to spare a few cups of coffee before we go,” Sam said. 

The scowl that followed his words was interesting. With most of the unsubs Reid encountered, something like that would be a sign of disgust at having to negotiate for what they considered their right. With Sam, his eyes flicked down and his shoulders crept up, suggesting he was embarrassed and frustrated with  _ himself _ for what he had said.

“Help yourselves to anything,” Mr. Samson said from where he had positioned himself in front of his husband in the far corner.

“Thanks,” Dean said, and pulled out the sets of handcuffs from a backpocket. He held them up as if to warn the agents what was going on, before pausing and pulling them closer to himself.

It took Reid a moment to realize that the cuffs had slipped shut, probably from when Dean stuffed them into his pocket. In the time it took for him to make the connection, Dean had picked the locks and passed an open pair to his brother.

Sam made the first move, crossing in front of his brother to stop in front of Reid. That was the other reason the agents were seated. Thanks to the limits of the human body, Reid had to raise his arms  _ in front  _ of him for Sam to bind. A significant improvement from the previous night.

Dean did the same with Hotch, movements clinical and practiced without any indication Dean had fallen back on muscle memory. Hotch was conspicuously relaxed, a careful blankness that worried Reid more than a hint of tension. Something had Hotch scared. 

Brushing past the looming ‘consequences,’ it was a little late for that to be the reason for the sudden nerves, Reid stood up at Sam’s urging. Oh, that was it, he realized, carefully not trying to watch what Dean was doing. Sam had expressed a clear preference for him, pushing past Dean to get to Reid first. That might change things, if Reid wasn’t “one of the prisoners”, if he was “Sam’s prisoner” which made Hotch-

“Dean,” Sam said, gesturing down the stairs to where the floor was conspicuously absent. “How are we supposed to reach the front door?”

“I saw the kitchen had a side door,” Dean said, from right behind Reid’s ear. He flinched, flailing for balance for a moment before someone grabbed the back of his shirt. Dean, he realized a moment later, as Sam appeared on his other side, loping down the stairs to lay a few of the longer floorboards over the hole. 

Luckily, Dean seemed to have relaxed, giving a lazy gesture to let the agents know they were to follow Sam into the kitchen. They did, Hotch moving to the front as they reached the plank bridge.

It seemed sturdy enough, and the younger Winchester had crossed safely. Not that they had a choice anyways, Reid thought, glancing back at Winchester.

Dean was watching them from the top of the stairs, body half turned towards the bedroom where the Samsons were still hiding. Bad, some part of Reid’s hindbrain noted.

Hotch seemed to catch on at the same time, freezing just long enough to be noticed before backing up from the edge of the pit. They needed to distract Dean from the Samsons, getting him frustrated with them was the—unfortunate—best option.

“I don’t think that’s safe,” Hotch said, shoulder nudging Reid behind him and further from the edge. “Could you take the cuffs off, at least?”

“Do you think I’m an idiot,” Dean asked, starting down the stairs. Below him, Reid took a careful step back. That had escalated faster than anticipated. 

“No,” Hotch said, and added some flattery to be safe. “I assumed that since you’re perfectly capable of putting the cuffs back on any time you liked,” a nice way to say he could hurt them at any time, “you wouldn’t mind taking them off to make us a little more comfortable.”

“Pretty words,” Dean said, “For the oldest trick in the book. Quit it with the flattery.”

By the time Dean had finished speaking he was less than a foot from Hotch. Hotch nodded, throat bobbing, and took a step back, deliberately moving closer to the plank bridge. 

Now that the Samsons were forgotten, it was time to appease Dean. Who had been quick to catch Hotch’s attempt at flattery. Not typical of the arrogant serial killer. More typical of someone who’d worked through their insecurities to reach an honest opinion of themselves. Reid filed that away for later. 

“I’ll go first,” Reid offered, giving Dean a chance to go last as the dangerous man had planned. It got Dean to step back, as Reid placed a foot onto the floorboard. It held, and Reid hurried across, trying not to think about how difficult it would be to catch himself if he lost his balance.

As soon as Reid stepped off, Hotch was crossing the bridge, his steps quick in a way that suggested the fear had only been halfway feigned. Reid knew for a fact that Hotch was no more scared of heights than he was of anything else. He would have to ask Hotch why he was playing it up. Later.

Dean waited until they had retreated a few paces down the hallway before he crossed himself, sneering at an open urn visible in the basement below. A few of Reid’s questions were answered at the sight. The urn was distinctly scorched.

“Have a seat,” Sam said from the doorway to the kitchen.

The agents looked at the kitchen, which was covered in flour, and did as they were instructed. Dean entered and had a conversation via eyebrows that ended with Sam leaning against the counter opposite them while Dean dusted flour off the coffee maker.

This was the second time the Winchesters had been in a room full of flour while claiming to be hunting a monster, Reid noted. A glance at Hotch revealed the older agent looking back at him before flicking his eyes to the trashed kitchen. 

The Winchesters had grown up moving from motel to motel, it was possible that their lack of familiarity with a kitchen allowed something as commonplace as flour to be found supernatural. They were documented to believe that salt had powers of protection after all.

Still, Reid found the idea rather weak, particularly when he saw other ingredients sitting on the counters. Dean had mentioned an angry ghost when he’d asked about the urn, and most ghost stories included the unlucky witness knocking something in the house over first. Given the ransacked state of the house in general, it seemed likely one of the Winchesters had thrown the bag of flour. Indeed, the house was old enough that the floor could have collapsed when the Winchesters knocked the bookcase over.

“Coffee’ll be ready in five,” Dean said, “I’m going to go get the car set up.”

Once Dean had left, Sam straightened and went to search the cupboards, never turning his back towards the agents. Three cabinets later, he’d found the travel cups he’d been looking for, and set them on the counter. He looked as if he was about to speak, but just shook his head and turned to glance at Dean as he reappeared, just in time for the coffee to finish brewing.

“Drink up,” Dean said, setting a cup in front of Reid. Hotch did not get a cup, as Sam noticed. Sam said nothing, however, only setting a cup down next to Hotch before moving to look through the Samsons’ pantry.

“What are you doing?” Dean asked, staring at his brother.

“They said we could help ourselves,” Sam said, gaze locked onto the rows of cans and jars in front of him.

“But they didn’t mean it,” Dean said, looking over at the agents and frowning.

“I’m going to leave money to cover it,” Sam said, his status as the younger brother clear, “Besides, we’re running out of food and I don’t think shopping is an option right now.”

“So you’re stealing it?” Dean asked, showing an unexpected level of disgust for the idea. 

Not a psychopath, Reid decided, Dean genuinely wanted to do good. The news was less of a relief than Reid had hoped. This just meant the Winchesters were so disconnected from reality that they could torture and kill people without remorse. If they started to view the agents as monsters, they were dead.

Hotch’s nervousness earlier made far more sense now. As did the way he was keeping out of the brother’s argument like his life depended on it. The Winchesters had already associated the law with vampires before. Best to keep sympathetic enough the Winchesters couldn’t help but see them as people.

“One, I’m paying for it,” Sam said, setting a wad of money down as he spoke, “And two, you never had any problem with buying groceries with stolen funds before.”

“Exactly,” Dean said, “Groceries, as in from a store, not from people who we just saved from a ghost.”

“Do you have a better plan?” Sam said, “I’m only taking enough to get us to Bobby’s.”

Dean paused at that, and if Reid’s own stomach was any judge, the sound of real food was tempting him.

“Fine,” he said, pulling out his own wallet to add another twenty dollar bill to the pile. “Now hurry up, it’s going to be at least a day of driving to get there.”

Knowing that the Winchesters both expected the agents around to make getting groceries difficult was a stupid thing to find encouraging, but less than an hour after entering the house, the Winchesters were already preparing to leave. If they could just delay long enough, Garcia might be able to trace the call and send the local police after them.

“What did you mean by consequences,” Reid asked, letting a healthy amount of fear show. As long as they were considered human, the Winchesters were likely to empathize with the agents.

“You get to keep wearing your accessories,” Dean said, reaching out and grabbing ahold of Reid’s handcuffs, jingling them. When it became clear he wasn’t going to let go, Reid gulped the rest of his coffee down, reluctant to take the mug with him. Sam gestured for Hotch to lead the way, and soon the agents were picking their way down the gravel drive, trying to avoid reminding the Winchesters that they were barefoot. No need to bring up that the agents had injured themselves trying to get away.

Their first escape attempt had failed, the next would not go over half as well. Unless they had a far better chance of success, the safest option would be to talk the Winchesters into letting them go.

At the car, Reid was unpleasantly surprised to see Dean had pulled out a couple of ties, and proceeded to toss the second to Sam.

“You get a choice,” Dean said, “You can wear a blindfold or you can ride in the back.”

“Blindfold,” Reid decided, holding out his hand for the tie. With a rather pointed look at the handcuffs holding Reid’s hands together, Dean gestured for him to turn around, before looping the fabric over his head and pulling it tight.

Reid had placed a hand on the car as he turned, so the loss of sight remained unpleasant, but not creating the risk he’d lose his balance. A minute later, both Hotch and himself were in the backseat, and the Winchesters had the car moving, driving back the same way they had come. 

Before Reid had a chance to try and guess how far out of their way the Winchesters had gone on their ghost hunt, Sam was talking. Asking question after question, rather, until even Reid could not keep track of all the turns the car was making.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  
  


It was late, probably around seven or eight in the evening, when the Impala reached its destination. Hotch and himself were still blindfolded, as they had been all day. The terrain had turned mountainous early on, but for the past hour the drive had been flat and straight. Judging from the sunlight seeping through the blindfold, the Winchesters were heading west. Which, well, made sense, considering the Winchesters wanted to get to Las Vegas.

Needless to say, spending a day blind and trapped in the backseat of a car was more than a little unpleasant. In the last six hours, Reid’s body had reached the limit for how long one could remain terrified and instead switched to being mindnumbingly bored. Sam had stopped asking questions before they’d stopped for a lunch of ham sandwiches with nothing else. 

Next to him, Hotch had begun to shift, small movements that were hidden by the sound of the car grinding to a halt on a gravel driveway. A reasonable enough action, when the reason for their stop was yet another person who shared the Winchesters delusions.

“Bobby,” Dean said, before the snick of his door closing cut off the rest of his conversation. Sam was doing the same, leaving the agents free to speak in silence for at least a moment.

“A cult,” Hotch said, phrasing his question as a statement.

“Seems likely,” Reid agreed. “But the Winchesters are transitory.”

“Too radical,” Hotch said, “The group at large believes in monsters, but the Winchester go further and believe it is their duty to kill them.”

“Duty?” Reid asked, lips barely moving.

“They don’t seem to enjoy killing,” Hotch said, “They seemed satisfied with burning a jar of ashes, when their delusion could easily have turned on the Samsons.”

“That’s the thing,” Reid said, “They didn’t care that the Samsons were husbands. I cannot think of another religious cult that would approve of a freedom like that among its members.”

“You think this is religion based?”

“The concept of salt as purifying and burning to lay a body to rest are. But no, I don’t think this is based solely on any one religious text,” Reid said.

“I doubt that adding another member will make them any more tolerant,” Hotch said, “And I suspect that trying to appear sympathetic will-”

What appearing sympathetic would do was to remain a mystery, as someone chose that moment to open the back door. 

“You didn’t tell me you’d kidnapped a kid,” an unfamiliar voice said. 

Reid had to force his hands down. The blindfold was a good thing, it meant they expected the news man’s face to need to remain unknown. And while calling him a kid was rude, this wasn’t the time to complain.

“That’s ‘cause he was one of the other guys trying to track down our child killer,” Dean said. 

“We’ll take the blindfolds off once you’re inside,” Sam said from the other side of the car. He sounded tired. Next to Reid, Hotch was noisily shuffling out of the car towards Sam.

When a hand wrapped around Reid’s own arm, he did the same, noting with weak relief that the brothers didn’t actually seem to have divided responsibilities for their prisoners. Indeed, Dean was walking him towards the house at a slow,  _ considerate  _ pace. Reid wondered if it had anything to do with the other man watching them. The man who sounded old enough to be the Winchesters’ father. 

As Reid was trying to estimate the odds of John Winchester having also faked his death, the party reached the house.

“Stairs,” the older man warned, leaving Reid to guess how far ahead he had meant. Right in front of him, as it turned out.

Reid winced as his foot, already torn up from sprinting down a gravel driveway barefoot, banged into the first step. Stealing a deep breath, he kept moving. Abductors tended to be more easily roused to violence when transporting their victims. He could check his foot himself once he got inside.

Behind him, Hotch also ran into the stairs, hard enough that his breath escaped in a hiss. More than that Reid could not tell, as he was guided through the door and onto a blissfully soft carpet.

Once inside, Dean wasted no time directing Reid to what felt like a kitchen chair, sitting him down and stepping away for a moment. He returned with a length of rope that was soon wrapped around Reid’s forearms, middle and calves, binding him to the chair in a manner that would prevent the rope from rubbing his skin raw. The practiced manner was worrying, as none of the Winchesters’ recorded victims had been tied up in such a way.

As a final step, the blindfold was removed, leaving Reid blinking at a light that gradually resolved itself into an old-fashioned wallpaper, perhaps a foot away from him. Out of the corner of his eye, a dark blur that had to have been Hotch was settled next to him.

Now we have nothing against you--mostly” Dean said, and Reid finally noticed the pattern. Every time one of the Winchesters trailed off, they rephrased what they were saying to be more abstract. Now Reid needed to learn if the Winchesters thought lying was evil or something less obvious.

“But what?” Reid cut in, before the Winchester brother had a chance to remind himself of any possible grudges.

“But you’re gonna be in time out for a bit-” Dean started.

“Before these two idjits come and take your place,” the third man cut in, Bobby, Reid decided to assume. The displeased tone of the words had the hairs on the back of Reid’s neck standing up. 

Fortunately, the three men moved around the corner before speaking again. Reid took the chance to look around, confirming that he was in fact in a kitchen, alongside Hotch. 

“What the hell were you thinking?” Bobby’s voice carried from around the corner. “Federal agents?”

“It wasn’t like we had a choice,” Dean said, his voice falling into the manly approximate of a whine.

“Oh, so they made you kidnap them at gunpoint?” Bobby said, “And even after that, they forced you to drive them halfway across the country?”

“I know we mess up,” Sam started.

“Messed up,” Bobby repeated, “boy, you  _ fucked _ up big time. We hunt monsters, we don’t hurt people.” There were a few ways Reid could interpret that, none of them reassuring.

“We were cursed,” Dean said, with the air of a schoolboy who’d been caught next to the broken window.

“To abduct the first people you came across?” Bobby said, “Bullshit.”

“The thing killing children, it was a witch doctor, you know like Dr. Facilier,” Sam started.

“Trust Samantha to make that connection,” Dean said, prompting Reid to try and place the name. None of the possibilities made sense, so he switched to the other nugget of information.

Sam Winchester hadn’t reacted to being called Samantha. That was out of character for someone charged with the rape, torture, and murder of roughly a dozen women. Then again, Sam might have gone along with it for his brother’s sake. Between the comment and Dean’s noted promiscuity, the elder Winchester might have extended his resentment in losing his mother to the entire gender.

“The curse,” Bobby said, forcing the conversation back on track.

“The witch doctor cursed us to not to lie,” Sam said, “and then Dean here was complaining about how to break it where the BAU could overhear.”

“I didn’t know they were there,” Dean said.

Reid turned to check on Hotch. The man was already watching him, and shook his head silently. Even assuming they could slip the ropes, the argument was too quiet to cover the sounds of them slipping out the window. Bobby seemed more upset at the kidnapping than the getting caught, so the overall danger hadn’t grown.

“So you took them?” Bobby asked, “How do you have to break the curse?”

“Poetic nonsense that boils down to watching the sun rise in Las Vegas,” Dean said.

“Are you sure they weren’t having you,” Bobby asked, “Because that sounds like nonsense to me.”

“Witch doctors are traditionally associated with gambling and places where a good portion of the population is just passing through,” Sam said, “Besides, if that were a lie, she was rather quick about making it up.”

Something screeched from the other side of the kitchen and Reid nearly jumped out of his skin. By the third screech, he had recognized the sound as an oven timer, scratchy from age. Behind the sound of the oven, creaking floorboards announced the return of the three.

Carefully, Reid refocused on the wallpaper in front of him. Bobby probably wasn’t wearing a mask, and Reid knew the odds once a captive had seen someone’s face. Beside him, Hotch did the same, forcing his fisted hands to relax.

“I take you you haven’t had supper,” Bobby said, over the sound of an oven door creaking open.

“Nope,” Dean said.

“Gonna need a few more potatoes then,” Bobby said, “Sam why don’t you set the table. Dean,” there was a pause, “Here’s the peeler.”

None of them seemed comfortable speaking in front of the agents, but at some point a radio was turned on, and dinner was prepared.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


Bobby turned out to be an older, rough looking man who somehow made the baseball cap and phantom of the opera mask appear serious. Reid learned this because he was sitting directly opposite the man around a small table. Facing away from any window, but between Hotch and Sam.

“Good food, good meat, good Lord let’s eat,” Dean blurted out, already grabbing for the closest dish.

Sam did the same, serving himself a portion of what looked like canned green beans before offering the bowls to Reid. After a few fumbled movements—they had only freed one of Reid’s hands—Reid was looking at the first real food he’d had in a few days. 

It had been a calculated risk to take a full serving, too much and one of their captors would be annoyed, too little and Reid could come across as disdainful. Dean didn’t seem to care, talking a sparse spoonful before passing it on. 

After all of them had been served, classic Midwestern fare Reid noted, Bobby spoke.

“I noticed that you didn’t mention the witch doctor was taken care of.”

Reid kept his flinch hidden. He’d been hoping Bobby’s lack of involvement meant he was a milder version of the Winchesters’ cult. One who believed in ghosts and aliens but not one to find monsters in people. 

“The feds got her,” Dean said, “they can probably handle it.”

“You’re gonna trust them with one of ours?” Bobby asked, and Reid found himself studying his nearly empty plate as they spoke around him.

“Witch doctors are human,” Sam said. “Nothing to do with witches, according to,” he paused, “our contact.”

“So how do they get their magic?” Bobby asked.

“Witches make bargains,” Sam said, “but witch doctors draw on ambient magic, apparently by blood sacrifices.”

“The kids,” Bobby said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yep,” Dean said, his face taking on a distinctly green tint. “People.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you left her with the locals,” Bobby said.

“What were we supposed to do?” Dean asked, “Kill her?”

Reid looked down again, really hoping they were not about to have that conversation. The Winchesters didn’t seem delusional enough to justify them talking about murder in front of federal agents. Not unless they didn’t care what they heard.

“Did you have a way to cut her off from her magic?” Bobby asked. He’d pushed his half full plate away from him.

“No,” Sam said, “But red thread can work temporarily.”

“So what, you want to leave the police a note telling them to wrap her in thread for the rest of her life?” Bobby said.

“I don’t know,” Sam said, “If we’d had to kill her to protect the kid, that’d be one thing.”

“But to just go and kill her when we don’t even know if she can control magic from prison,” Dean finished.

“Good to know your pa hasn’t messed you up all the way,” Bobby said, “I’m going to go see what I can find—on witch doctors you say?”

From the silence, Reid assumed one of the brothers had nodded.

“Right,” Bobby said, “Well I suppose your mistakes can spend the night in the basement. I wasn’t kidding about that timeout, ya know. You two are supposed to be hunters, not a pair of morons who don’t have the sense to keep out of trouble.”

“We’re sorry, Bobby,” Sam said, “We didn’t know what else to do.”

“Idjits,” Bobby said as he left the room, leaving the brothers to untie Hotch and Reid.

The brothers did so in silence, unable to meet Reid’s eyes as they led them down a flight of stairs and to a door heavily covered with symbols. Beyond the door was what could easily serve as a torture chamber, a chair with restrainst bolted down in the center of the room and stains of dubious origins covering every available surface. 

Reid did not want to go in there.

“Here,” Dean said, shoving a pair of sleeping bags into Hotch’s arms and gesturing for him to enter. He did so, and Reid followed a few steps after him, doing his level best to ignore the chair.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Sam said, unable to look into the room. 

At that, Dean gave a humorless laugh and began to haul the heavy door shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took longer than expected, but I have officially made it to the halfway point. As always, I hope you enjoy and please comment on what you liked.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is where the alternative events in Las Vegas start to show up. Enjoy, and happy holidays.

Garcia was under her desk when the phone rang. The decades-old wall outlet had met its limit in the face of Garcia’s portable workstation. She’d been in the middle of switching the mess of powercords to the nearby powerstrip when she heard the generic ring tone of an unknown number vibrating the table above her. 

Garcia was some helpless damsel in distress, so she was clear of the table and connecting the call to a few of her more useful programs before the first ring had finished. The rest of the BAU reached their usual place behind her shoulder a single ring afterwards.

“Hello?” Garcia said, clicking her pen on and off, on and off.

Nobody answered, but sound was coming through. It was static, scratchy bursts of noise spiking up every few seconds. Behind that, however, was the kind of varying pitch that meant somebody was talking. 

“Is that Reid?” Rossi asked and was promptly shushed.

The static continued for another few minutes, before there was a sharp rush of static and the line cut. Nobody said anything for a moment.

“Can you clean that up?” Rossi finally said.

“Sure as sugar,” Garcia said, opening a new window.

“Also,” Garcia would have normally drawn the word out a bit, but two of her people were missing. “I traced the call, this came off of an actual landline, by the way, to the middle of nowhere Iowa. And I mean  _ nowhere— _ the nearest town is a good two hour drive.”

“Iowa?” Morgan said, “Do you know anyone there?”

“No one with this number,” Garcia said, sending the file through a few filters. “It has to be them.” Her voice migrated into its usual bombastic pattern as she finished speaking. 

“Baby girl,” Morgan started, “Be careful. I don’t think the Winchesters are the type to just let a phone call happen.”

Garcia knew that, she wanted to snap. But...but Morgan knew she knew that. He didn’t mean anything by it, he was just trying to prepare them both.

Prepare them for what, Garcia was about to find out. 

“It’s ready,” she said, taking a step back so her audience could reach the start button. No one said anything, Rossi moving aside so that she had a clear shot out the door if she needed it. Garcia knew what calls like this usually held.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


The call was disturbing in none of the usual ways. There was no screaming, no diatribe against the world, or even gloating at having pulled one over the police. There wasn’t even an unnerving silence until the call ended.

“They tried to escape,” Rossi said, cutting to the heart of their fears. “And in what sounds like unfavorable conditions. Why?”

“The call came from Iowa, right?” Morgan said, “What if this was just their first chance. They had to have been driving all day to make it there this fast.”

“What if it wasn’t their first attempt?” Garcia broke in. “I didn’t,” she drew in a shuddering breath, “I didn’t hear the Winchesters say anything about this being their first attempt, or even warn against a repeat.”

“They were unusually calm,” Prentiss said, “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not?” Morgan asked.

“The Winchesters are smart, able to work around or even pass as law enforcement if they want to,” Prentiss said, “They know that if Reid and Hotch escape they’ll be chased, even if they don’t know we figured out who they are.”

There was a pause as everyone thought through that twisting sentence. “So why aren’t the Winchesters reacting,” Garcia asked.

“Two possibilities,” Rossi said, “Firstly, the call took place in a public area where they would attract attention if they reacted adversely. Secondly, the Winchesters were somehow not upset that they tried to escape.”

“Has the second one occured before?” Prentiss asked, “Ever?”

“Well,” Rossi said, “Only when the unsub liked the sense of superiority foiling an escape attempt gave them.”

“Is that...likely?” Garcia asked delicately.

“No,” Rossi said as Morgan answered, “Yes.”

The two looked at each other for a second, Rossi motioning for Morgan to explain. “They make a point of posing as FBI when they kill, I can see them getting off on acting all professional when they kidnap actual federal agents. You know, thinking that a failed escape attempt is a sign that they’re better than the feds.”

“It’s possible,” Rossi said, ‘but highly unlikely. Listen to what they said, ‘We’re coming in. I  _ suggest _ you take a step back.’”

“So,” Prentiss said, “they care about being polite?”

“Close,” Rossi said, “But that’s not polite. They aren’t asking for anything. Which is why I want to know why the Winchesters are taking such care to telegraph their movements.”

“You think they’re empathizing with Reid and Hotch?” Prentiss clarified.

“It would explain why Hotch felt it was safe enough to attempt an escape,” Rossi said, lifting a shoulder. “The Winchesters appear fully capable of understanding how a captive would feel, so long as they don’t believe them to be a monster. That might be enough to justify some risks.”

“Was it justified though?” Morgan asked, “I can’t see why Hotch or Reid would go through all the effort of calling us, only to not say anything.” The,  _ was this call planned? _ went unsaid.

“It was a landline,” Garcia said, “so they kind of had to be in a house. What if they weren’t alone? The Winchester’s cool down period has been entirely random so far.”

“The presence of civilians could have driven Hotch to make a spontaneous attempt to get free,” Prentiss said.

Garcia could pick up the unspoken part of Prentiss’ statement easily enough. She took a step towards the door, catching a glimpse of Farlet’s temporary prison. Suddenly a break for fresh air was less than tempting.

“You think the Winchesters would go on another one of their ‘hunts’ while on a cross-country roadtrip with two captives?” Rossi asked.

“I don’t know what to think,” Prentiss said, “but that seems like the best explanation. Have we figured out whose phone it was?”

“Way ahead of you there,” Garcia said, her voice not quite it’s usual chirp. “The address is for one Mr. and Mr. Samson, who I must add, have both been in and out of the hospital for injuries related to a house that really should have been condemned years ago.”

“Have you-” Morgan started.

“Sent out the locals to check on them and flagged the Winchesters’ Impala for the State Police, already done.”

“Forgive me for doubting you,” Morgan said, “It will not happen again.”

“It better not, hot stuff” Garcia said, and moved to take her place at the monitors.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two hours later, Garcia had to admit that their lead had run dry. The Samsons were concerned for the agents and rather confused as to why their house’s floor was now missing, but they hadn’t heard anything about where the Winchesers were going.

“A ghost from an urn,” Morgan said, shaking his head, “That’s a new one.”

Officer Stark hummed in agreement as she poked her head into the BAU’s corner. “Speaking of new, Farlet admitted there was another child.”

It was apparent that the local officer was unprepared for the response that earned. She stood there for a few seconds as Garcia and her team made a beeline to the miniscule kitchen tacked onto the town hall. 

“So, who goes in first?” Morgan asked, looking between Rossi and Prentiss. “What’s already been done?”

“Something we should already know,” Rossi said, “If we’d stopped to think.”

That one took Garcia’s tired brain a moment to catch. When she did she stopped, spinning to step up right in front of him. “Don’t you dare blame yourself,” she said, “I  _ know  _ everyone has been doing everything they can, so don’t you dare suggest that you should be responsible for dealing with Farlet, checking the video footage, and...and,” she trailed off.

Officer Stark took that as an opportunity to step up, “Besides that’s kind of what I’m here for, to make sure y’all know what’s going on.” She flushed a bit at the sudden attention that gained, but to her credit, she continued as if nothing had happened.

“We sent out a patrol to check her house, and while I don’t know the exact details I do know John came back looking distinctly green around the gills, if you see what I mean. Farlet herself has been getting grilled since yesterday, and the guys are about to break for an early lunch.”

It was quiet for a moment, the whole team waiting for Hotch to decide what was next. Finally, Rossi spoke, “Where can we get the details on Farlet’s house?”

“John can help with that,” Officer Stark told them, nodding at the man Garcia has spotted running for the porcelain throne earlier. 

“Okay, Morgan, look into that,” Rossi said, “Prentiss and I will go get a sense of how to approach Farlet.”

Garcia’s stomach chose that moment to growl. 

“After I pick us up some lunch,” Morgan amended the statement. “Anyone want to join me?”

Garcia darted a glance back at her computer, sitting there with nothing but a sound file they’d already heard over and over. “I will,” she said. 

  
  


~~~~~~~~

“I just wish it wasn’t children dying,” Morgan said, as they approached the service counter.

“It makes everything feel even even more meaningless than normal,” Garcia nodded 

“What’ll it be?” the well padded server asked. The two ordered, and were about to step back when the guy spoke again. 

“If you don’t mind my asking, why does everyone think the deaths are related?” he asked, leaning forward over the counter. 

“Everyone?” Morgan asked, a half beat before Garcia. 

“You, the two guys from out of town yesterday,” the man shrugged. “The deaths were accidental, right?”

“What guys from yesterday?” Garcia asked, ignoring the question. 

“Wait really?” The server said, ignoring her question in turn. “Oh, um, two brothers came in yesterday, wanted to know about the Davis boy. Why do you care?”

“I’m Special Agent Morgan of the BAU,” Morgan said, “I’m going to need you to tell us everything you can remember about these men.”

“No way,” the guy said, sounding far too delighted to be part of a murder investigation. 

Garcia only noticed she was gripping the counter too tightly after her first nail cracked. 

  
  


~~~~~~~

  
  


“So, we know the Winchesters went after a child killer intentionally,” Morgan said, a fair bit later. “Which begs the question,  _ how did they find out? _ ”

“How did the Winchesters pick their previous victims?” Rossi asked. 

“No known pattern,” Garcia said, “but I may have something. I requested the records of Winchester’s interview from the LVMPD and they finally got back to me.”

“The records that they claimed were destroyed after the Winchesters died?” Morgan clarified. 

“The very same,” Garcia said, “someone owed me a favor.”

“As much as I like hearing about such things,” Rossi said, “could we perhaps skip ahead to watching the interrogation.”

“Sure,” Garcia said, “I’ll let you set it up, since you're in such a hurry.”

Even before Garcia had finished speaking, Morgan had a hand on her shoulder and Prentiss had stepped forward, blocking Rossi from sight.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Morgan asked.

“I’m fine,” Garcia said. She turned to face Rossi again, “I’m sorry for snapping at you, I’ll go get the video set up.”

“You were not the only one at fault,” Rossi said. It was probably as close to an apology as she would get.

~~~

The recording was poor, the camera so ill-placed that the interrogating officer was entirely off screen. It was also clearly unedited, as there was a good twenty minutes of the older Winchester singing and drumming on the table before someone else entered the room. 

Said someone had the camera shaking as they took their seat, starting in before the oscillations had ended. “Nigel Tufnel, would you care to explain why you were found at a crime scene with a bloody stick?”

“Isn’t it against policy for a police officer to curse at someone?” Winchester asked with an upward curl of his lip. The sneer grew deeper as the officer failed to reply. 

“Bloody stick,” Winchester prodded, sinking back into his chair. Already he made Garcia’s teeth hurt.

“Pause it,” Prentiss said, reaching out to trace the screen. “Look at this.” He drew a finger over the raised eyebrows and bared teeth on screen. 

“He’s scared,” Prentiss elaborated. “Not obviously, probably not even continuously scared, but all the markers are there.”

“You’re saying Winchester is afraid of the police?” Morgan asked, squinting at the screen. “I didn’t see any other indicators of that in his file.”

“No,” Prentiss said, “I’m saying he’s scared of whoever was interrogated him. Go back to the beginning and watch. When the door opens he’s frustrated. When he sees who it is, he gets nervous, looking around the room, breaks off tapping the table. This guy is cocky, he would try to avoid showing nerves.”

“Do we know who was in there with him?” Rossi asked.

“I already checked their system—no dice,” Garcia answered. Rossi hummed and resumed the video.

“You’re a funny one,” the officer said, “I bet you have a great story, so let’s hear it.”

“Sure thing,” Winchester said, “but first, am I under arrest?”

“Hmm?” the officer asked, perfectly matching the noncomental invitation to elaborate that teachers and interrogators used worldover.

“Am I under arrest?” Winchester repeated. “I agreed to come here to answer a few questions, but I feel mistreated.”

“You are not being mistreated,” the officer said, sounding annoyed by the fact.

“Sure, sure,” Dean said, “you haven’t answered my question. Am. I. Under. Arrest?”

“Well,” the officer said, “no, but you were found at a crime scene-”

“Before it was designated as such,” Winchester interrupted.

“Holding a bloody weapon,” the officer finished.

“Excellent,” Winchester said, “well, I’m off then.”

“Wait,” the officer said, voice a steady monotone, “don’t you care that people are being killed?”

That reached Winchester, if the way he looked up, leaning forward in his chair, offered any indications. “Don’t you dare,” he said, “I care—I care more than a monster like you can understand. I would give my life to save that woman’s life.” Rossi paused the video. None of the agents said anything. 

“He didn’t seem like he was lying.” Prentiss broke the silence.

“Correct me if you can,” Rossi said, “but I would bet good money that our mystery officer is the one he called a vampire, Officer Vescon.”

“Probably. But I don’t see why Winchester would be so eager to leave then.” That was Morgan.

“A stake,” Garcia said, “the stick—it was a stake. He must have planned to meet Officer Vescon when he still had the stake.”

“Only something went wrong,” a new voice said, “so he was ready to get out and make a new plan.” Once she was done speaking, Officer Stark backed up, like she wanted to leave the room. 

Morgan caught her, pulling her into the conversation without demanding she say anything. “Officer Stark has a point, the Winchesters have always been smart, and they have shown a marked preference for working together.”

“I would argue that the Winchesters are even smarter than that,” Rossi said, “The Winchesters are opportunistic, they believe it is their duty to kill monsters, so they would, like he said, risk their lives to kill a so called monster, but not the rest of their lives.”

“You’re saying they won’t risk getting imprisoned,” Prentiss translated. “Because they would rather lose one victim than all future victims?” Her voice was too steady; it made Garcia want to hug her.

“I believe it is more wanting to save a greater number of people,” Rossi said, “Hotch and Reid are still alive.”

“And the Samsons,” Garcia added, only partially to distract herself.

“And the Samsons,” Rossi agreed, restarting the recording.

As soon as the video resumed, Winchester stood up, leaning over the table, the top of his head leaving the frame. “So, listen up,” he directed his words at the camera, “I didn’t kill anybody.” 

The camera quivered again, this time from Officer Vescon rising. Dean walked around the table and out of sight before the next sound came. 

The sound was the woosh of a door sliding shut. The video continued for another minute, before a set of dirty-nailed fingers appeared on the camera lens, and the officer shut the recording off.

“They didn’t even run a background check on his name,” Garcia said, letting that one inane detail steal her focus.

“I-” Whatever Morgan was going to say was lost as Garcia’s computer beeped, and a row of portraits popped up. Three of them. Young girls smiling at the camera. One was on horseback, one had a tray of brownies held in front of her face, and the last was wearing an ugly christmas sweater.

“I narrowed down the list of missing girls,” Garcia said, perhaps unnecessarily.

Officer Stark pushed past her, rushing to the screen. “Avery?” Then again, “Avery. That’s my niece.” She was pointing at the first girl.

“Why is she on the missing persons list?”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but I'm enjoying the holidays too.
> 
> As always, comments are thoroughly appreciated. I hope this chapter proved it's not just the Winchesters who find the bad luck stacking up. (Or did contact with the Winchesters cause it?)
> 
> Kudos to anyone who caught Dean's alias.


	8. Chapter 8

As Sam climbed the stairs leading from the basement, he could not help but lag behind Dean. For good reason as it turned out—Bobby’s disapproval was a near physical slap in the face.

“Dean,” the older man said, “you know what’s next.” He jerked his chin towards the cleared table. While they’d been downstairs a pad of paper and a pen had appeared on the worn table cloth. To add insult to injury, it was one of the obnoxiously colorful pencils that companies like to give away. This one was advertising Bucket of Sh*t Plumbers. Lovely. 

“What?” Dean said, his steps losing their rhythm. “Come on, I’m a grown ass man. You can’t-”

“Coulda fooled me,” Bobby interrupted, “Kiddies still going through toilet training would have shown more sense than you.”

“But-” Dean sputtered, looking between Bobby and Sam. Sam studied the worn tile by his feet, Bobby had changed it since the last time they’d stopped by. No more flowers.

“Okay,” Dean finally said and slunk over to the table. Once there, he picked up the pencil and started clicking, glaring at the empty paper. Bobby didn’t seem to care. Then again, this wasn’t the first time he’d made Dean write the dreaded essay.

“And Sam,” Bobby said, challenging him to meet his eyes. “You’re going to join me in the study and explain what exactly you thought you were doing and what you two dumbasses are going to do to fix this.” 

That was a new one, Sam had never had to tell Bobby the solution before. Then again, the solution to fighting monsters was generally rather clear. 

“I swear I didn’t want to kidnap anyone, but I didn’t want to risk undermining Dean in front of them and then things just happened and next thing I know...well,” Sam said, as soon as they were alone in Bobby’s office. 

“I meant what you were gonna do about the witch doctor,” Bobby said. His tone implying he was talking to a beauty pageant reject. 

“Oh,” Sam said, resisting the urge to run the back of his neck. “Right.”

“So,” Bobby said, “What’ve you got?”

“Mike, the hunter we talked with, said they were pretty common in the bayou. More so twenty years ago, but he bets there are still a few bunches of them still hanging around. The whole creepy Aztec human sacrifice ritual stuff is unique though.” Sam fell back into his seat, settling in as the sound of Dean tapping his pencil again the table started up.

“Aztec ritual?” Bobby cut in, looking up from his notes.

“The lady was the curator of this really creepy museum. Full of old artifacts like the obsidian knife she was using to cut them up.”

“So it was just the regular human crazy,” Bobby said.

“Yep,” Sam said, “Makes you miss regular monsters, doesn’t it?”

“Makes me miss regular good-hearted people,” Bobby corrected. “What did you tell the feds anyways?”

“Tell them?” Sam echoed, his fall twitching into a frown. 

“About the basement…” Bobby trailed off. “You and your brother just shoved them in a room that would have any sane person running for the hills and left, didn’t you.” It was not a question. 

“Ummm.” Sam had to admit, he had nothing to say to that. 

“Right,” Bobby sighed. He looked old then, tired and faded like a towel that had been washed one too many times. “Let’s go sort this out.”

“You want me to come?” Sam asked, leaning back in his chair. Making monsters flinch was one thing. Watching as members of the BAU tried to hide the way they flinched from him was another. 

“Yes,” Bobby said. “I don’t really fancy being attacked.”

“...Right,” Sam realized. Of course the highly trained agents wouldn’t stop running after their first escape attempt. 

By then, they were in the kitchen, Dean looking up from his nearly empty sheet of paper. “What’s going on?”

“Going to remind those poor saps that nobody is going to hurt them, then ask what they know about our witch doctor problem,” Bobby said. 

“Wouldn’t it be faster to do it the other way around?” Dean asked, lip twitching up at the end of his sentence. "That's how dad always did it."

“Your father is a great hunter,” Bobby said, “but he knows jack shit about being a good person. _No_ , we are not going to scare the people you kidnapped into talking.”

“He’s a good-” Dean started, standing up from the table. His words got trapped in his throat and his eyes flew wide as he half started sentence after sentence. “He tried his b-” Finally he found one. “...he tried.”

“He did care,” Sam said, barely audible. 

“You can’t even say he was a good father,” Bobby said. 

Sam wanted to deny it. At the moment he wanted nothing more than to open his mouth and tell Bobby that he was wrong, that he was jealous, that he was _something_ other than right. 

He couldn’t. 

“Shut up,” Dean said, leaning over so he could get right up in his father figure's face. “Shut up.”

“Dean,” Bobby said, but he was cut off by a growl. 

“Listen,” Bobby tried again, “I forgot about the curse, okay. I forgot.”

“I noticed,” Dean forced out, wheeling around and banging through the screen door. There was the crunch of boots on gravel and then the protesting squeal of rusty metal as he forced one of the old car doors open. 

Afterwards the kitchen was quiet, the only sound coming from the old grandfather clock in the living room. “I,” Bobby started. 

“It’s nothing I didn’t already know,” Sam said. And his stomach lurched as he had to face the truth of that statement. 

“Still,” Bobby said, “I messed up.”

“Let’s just go deal with the feds, shall we?” Sam said, abandoning all attempts at subtlety. “No point in making them stew.”

That had Bobby giving him a sideways glance as they headed towards the basement stairs. “Your knife,” he finally said. “You might want to take it off.”

Sam looked down at his belt, where his usual hunting knife was settled. Shoving down John’s admonishments to never leave behind a weapon, he shrugged and pulled it out, moving to add it to one of the many shelves of weapons along the opposite wall.

It was at that moment that another two bodies moved around the corner headed in the opposite direction.

  
  


~~~~~~

  
  


Aaron’s eyes were wide as he leapt back, nearly knocking Spencer over in his haste. “Wait,” he pleaded, slowly raising his empty hands. Next to him, Spencer was doing the same, although not before stuffing something into a pocket. “Please.”

Sam had startled at the sudden appearance of the two men, knife hand coming up unconsciously. He matched them step for step as they backed up, until he was next to Bobby again and the agents’ breath had evened out. It was still too fast, but it wasn’t the staggered jerks of breath that come right after a fright.

“You have a lot of guns,” Spencer said, eyes flicking between Sam and the wall of assorted weapons off to the side. 

“Yes, and most of them are filled with salt, so it won’t do you any good.” Sam didn’t miss the look they shared at the mention of salt rounds. On the other hand, well, Aaron had stopped edging towards the wall, so Sam would just have to pick his battle.

“I didn’t mean it like that, I swear,” Spencer said, moving to lower his hands before frowning and raising his hands even higher.

“How did you get out?” Sam asked, watching their eyes. A body could lie about many things, but their eyes always gave away the attack. Assuming the creature had eyes.

“You didn’t lock the door,” Spencer said, stepping in for Aaron. The fed’s voice was a touch higher than Sam recalled, but his voice was firm and he was able to meet Sam’s eyes. 

“You’re kidding, right?” Bobby cut in, having somehow pulled one of the many guns off the wall in the confusion. It was currently pointed at the floor, but Sam doubted that made the agents feel any better.

“No,” Aaron said, “the door was unlocked.”

“Boys,” Bobby said, looking directly at Sam. Spencer's breathing started to pick up again.

“Fair enough,” Sam decided, “I don’t suppose you want to just walk back into the,” for a moment Sam struggled to think of an appropriate word, “room.”

“We can do that,” Aaron said, watching him with the eerily impassive expression Sam had grown used to seeing. Even though it didn’t really matter, Sam wondered if the door had actually been left unlocked.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Spencer said, leaving a long pause. “Why were you headed down here in the first place?”

“I had a few questions,” Bobby said, stepping forward to stand between Sam and the agents. Before he could continue, the light flickered, plunging the room into pitch blackness. They came back on a second later, revealing two feds who had moved several paces back, hands no longer by their ears.

“I thought you were on an isolated grid,” Sam said, stashing his knife in favor of a few of the larger firearms on the wall.

“I am” Bobby said, using his empty hand to pull out a phone. “Hey Dean—wait, don’t hang up.”

Not half a second later the phone was pulled down, and the lights flickered a second time. 

Sam pulled out his own phone, and dialed the number. “Dean,” he said, “We might have a problem.”

“What now?” Dean’s voice groaned, “Having a sudden urge to burst into song?”

“The lights are acting up,” Sam said. 

“Shit,” Dean said, “I don’t see anything out here.” The line was quiet for a moment. “Wait, yes I do.”

“What?”

“Black car, tinted windows, just pulled up to the gate.”

“Can they see you?” Sam asked, glancing back at the agents. The agents who were carefully looking everywhere but him.

“Not yet,” Dean said, “but there’s a second car.”

“Of course there is,” Sam said, “Okay, I’m going to hang up, trying and get inside will you?” 

“I’ll try,” Dean said, “But no promises.”

Sam hung up, turning to glance at Bobby. “Dean says there are two black SUVs coming up the drive.”

“Upstairs?” Bobby suggested.

“Upstairs,” Sam agreed. Then he turned to the agents and had to pause. If they were under attack, then the feds wouldn’t exactly be safe anywhere, but they couldn’t try and run in a dungeon. “Right, I have to ask that you go upstairs with us, at least until we know what’s going on.”

“Just tell us what you think is going on,” Spencer said, moving towards the stairs, each movement slow and fluid.

“Not sure yet,” Bobby said, “But in my experience a surprise is never good.”

The small group made their way up the stairs, Spencer making a beeline for the window until Bobby’s pointed cough pulled him to a stop. 

“Are you expecting someone?” Sam asked. And wondered what it said that a federal raid was the best possibility that he could think of.

“No,” Spencer said, looking between Sam and Bobby. 

“You sure?” Bobby asked.

The agents were spared having to respond by Sam’s phone vibrating.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked.

“Look out the window,” Dean replied. 

Mindful of the lines of sight, Sam snuck up to the window and nudged a faded curtain aside. Opposite him, Bobby was doing the same.

“That is not the police,” Sam said. Bobby swore.

The first SUV had been emptied, and the people who’d emerged were of two clear parts. The first part was disturbing enough, not one person looked like they belonged there. One of them looked homeless, another looked like he was on his way to a dinner with some Bond villain, and the last was the spitting image of Dolores Umbridge.

The deeply disturbing part was the other three. Young and dressed in clothing far to light for the current weather, they had been bound and dumped on the ground. Ignored. As Sam watched from in the house, one of their unwelcome visitors walked by, casually kicking one of them out of his way. Then the other two opened the boot lid, and Sam realized he was going to need a bigger gun. The lights flickered again, and this time they did not come back on.

From the back of the SUV, a mass, a mountain, of fur and fat fell flopped out. And did not get up.

“What the hell are they gonna do with a dead bear?” Bobby asked.

As if in answer, each of the figures pulled one of their captives to their feet, hauling them over to the bear. As one they raised a hand to the sky, revealing the flashing black glint of obsidian knives. They were already falling as Sam moved. By the time he reached the screen door they were dead, and their blood was mixing with the bear’s fur, turning it an unhealthy red-black brown.

Before Sam could undo the latch or decide to simply go through the wire screen, Bobby was there. “Down,” he said, and tackled Sam to the floor. Nothing happened.

A few seconds later, nothing had happened. His cheeks flushing a ruddy red, Bobby got back to his feet, offering Sam a hand up. His other hand was pointing a gun at the wall between the agents.

Sparing the odd glance back at where the witch doctors were huddled by the corpses, in the midst of what appeared to be an argument, Sam focused on what he hoped was the more immediate concern.

“What was that for?” he asked Bobby. 

“I saw him holding something that reflected the light, Bobby said, nodding at Spencer. The indicated man blanched as Sam raised an eyebrow.

“I-I don’t have a weapon,” Spencer said, eyes flickering from Sam to Bobby to the window and back again.

“Then what do you have?” Bobby asked, and waited as Spencer carefully revealed what was in his hand. It was the kitchen phone. One of the old corded models,

“The line is down, probably for the same reason the lights were,” Spencer said, almost tripping over his words as he set the down on the counter and took several steps away, not stopping until his back hit Aaron.

“I don’t have time for this,” Bobby said, turning to glare at the agents, “You two, you get a choice. You can either go right out that door and take your chances with the witch doctors who just killed three people. Or you can sit down and stay out of our way.”

Not the way Sam would have put it— actually, with the truth spell…

Regardless, it worked. The two feds waited a second to see if Sam was going to add anything, then Aaron nodded at the kitchen chairs and took a seat. Or at least Sam assumed that was what they did. The table was around the corner, and Dean was calling him.

“Look out the window,” Dean said, not bothering with a greeting. Outside, the first three witch doctors had been joined by another two, and they were standing around the bear, which was squirming and twitching like there was something alive under its hide.

“Crap,” Bobby said from behind Sam. “I need to go check on something.”

“Is now really the time?” Sam asked, squeezing off a shot at the party. The snappy dresser fell, clutching his hand. The chanting of the others sped up.

The second shot missed, and before Sam could fire a third time, they stopped and the bear moved. What had to be at least a thousand pounds of zombie stood up.

“They made a bear,” Dean said. 

“A bear,” Sam agreed. “What do we do?”

“Undo it,” Dean said, the click of his magazine coming through the phone remarkably clear. 

“Undo it?” Sam said, looking at the beast that was currently standing absolutely still, unconcerned with its surroundings.

“You know kill it again, or something,” Dean said, a rustle the only warning Sam got before Dean’s head appeared in a car right next to the bear.

“I don’t think it works that way,” Sam said, right as Dean emptied his clip into the creature. The bear didn’t seem to care, but the witch doctors dove for cover.

Just as Sam was starting to think they had a chance, they popped back up again. This time each was wearing what could only be described as a patchwork poncho. Ones that looked rather similar to the blanket currently sitting in the boot of the Impala.

“Well, it looks like witch doctors don’t work alone,” Dean said. “And that looks like Farlet’s handiwork.”

“And they appear bulletproof,” Sam said, watching as his next bullet faded into a shower of sparks before it reached one of the witch doctors. He hadn’t even been aiming to hit them,due to the nasty tendency of magical protection to send an attack right back, and the spell had reached out and blocked it.

“Hey, Sam,” Dean’s voice had grown serious, “The bear might be a little more pressing right now.

Sam checked; the bear was moving, headed directly for the old truck Dean was hiding in. “Can you get out the other side?” he asked.

“No,” Dean said. “Other side of the truck is totaled.”

“Bullets don’t work, do you have anything else with you?” Sam asked, firing his next shot at a patch of ground between two witch doctors. While the bullets may not hit, the cloud of dust kicked up seemed to be doing a passable job of getting in their eyes.

“You need bone,” Bobby said, carrying a stack of papers and a large box. “It says here that when it comes to witch doctors the solution is always go back to the source.”

“How does that equal bone?” Dean asked, seconds before a grating scrape carried over the phone. The bear had reached the car.

“The bear was raised by blood magic, blood magic comes from blood, blood comes from bone marrow, bone marrow comes from bone,” Bobby said, opening the box. “Here.”

Inside the box was a ragtag collection of bones, ranging from bone clubs to a set of sharpened antlers to what may have been a set of bone bullets. Too large for Sam’s current gun, unfortunately. 

“How do you even have this?” Sam said, already grabbing handfuls. The clubs would be next to useless against a grizzly, but some of the sharpened bones might work. There was a carved knife that cut through the box easily enough when Sam tested it. “Not that I’m complaining,” he clarified, already opening the door.

They said you were supposed to make yourself seem bigger when you ran into a bear right, Sam mused as he ran. Or was that play dead? Then the bear swung a paw at him, and he didn’t have time to think.

Up close, the bear was the size of a small car, and Sam it seemed too big to have ever fit into an SUV in the first place. The first three bones were shoved into the bear easily enough, then the bear turned again and batted at Sam. 

Sam flung himself back, and it was the car door that shattered into a thousand bits and pieces instead. “Dean,” he shouted, tossing half of his remaining bones “here.”

His brother caught them, and started stabbing. One lucky strike went straight through the bears paw and into the dash, pining it. As Sam made a wild stab at the thing’s head to distract it, Dean slithered out through the long since demolished windshield of the car.

“Take this, Papa Bear,” Dean said and lunged forward. He caught the bear in its eye, but it was an awkward strike rebounding off the outer edge of the eye socket rather than traveling deeper into the brain. Sam pulled Dean back just before its jaws closed.

“Move,” Bobby yelled, and Dean did. He shoved Sam back, sending both of them over the hood of the demolished truck and onto the ground of the other side.

“Under here,” Sam said, rolling under the car. Dean followed, just in time for the bear to slam into the car. Both brother’s winced and Dean swore as flakes of rust started rain down on them, seemingly aiming for their eyes.

“Well this was an excellent idea,” Dean started before he was compelled to add a “not,” as the bear set the car rocking again. “Now I’m trapped _and_ blind. Wonderful...not.”

“Bet you wish you had long hair right now,” Sam said, unable to focus on what it meant he could say that. “Give me your knife.”

Before Dean could accidentally stab him, Sam took the bone, flipping it so the blade was pointed towards the outside of his hand, and wriggled towards the edge of the car closest to the bear.

“What are you doing?” Dean whisper-hissed, turning scrunched eyes towards Sam.

“Baiting it,” Sam said, driving the tip of the blade into the outside of his elbow, away from nerves and veins. It worked, the smell of fresh blood drawing the bears attention. Sam waited until he could smell the rotting tissue in the bear before striking. 

He popped out from under the car, right into the bear’s face and drove the dagger covered in his own blood into the bear’s other eye. The undead bear did not roar or flinch or give any indication of pain as it died the second time. It just slumped to the ground like, well, like a corpse.

“It gone?” Dean asked, already starting to move out from under the car.

“We may have another problem,” Sam said, eyeing theeyeing the pair of SUVs. More people had appeared, for a total of six. 

“And what are we supposed to do about that?” Dean asked, “They’re all human. No deals, no debts, nothing but human evil.” Whatever he was about to say next was cut short by the doors of the second SUV sliding open to reveal a second zombie bear.

This one was a bit smaller, but made up for that in speed. Sam wondered if that was the result of being animated for a longer period of time. Then he realized that meant the bear was already bearing down on them and he got to running. Dean ran the other way. Towards the bear.

The thing about all bears, undead included, is that they are predators, which means they never expect to be attacked. To be fair, said attacker would have to be insane to run towards the teeth and claws of an angry bear.

Dean did not die, thank somebody. In a motion that served as a perfect mirror to what had happened moments before, he swung his hand up and drove the sharpened bone into the bear’s eye. Unlike the previous time, this bear had been killed mid run, leaving the corpse to lurch forward, traveling almost entirely over Dean before it sank to the floor.

After a moment of gawking silence, the witch doctors collected themselves and fled, spreading out across the salvage yard in all directions. Sam decided it was safe enough to go check on Dean.

All that was visible of his brother was a hand and the tip of his nose. Both of which were twitching irritably. Sparing another glance around, Sam pulled out his phone. Squatting down to get a better angle, Sam took a few photos as Dean managed to drag himself out a few inches. At which point he saw Sam and proceeded to prove that the bear was not diminishing his lung capacity at all.

Just in case, Sam emailed the images to himself, before moving to give Dean a hand. A few minutes later, both of them were standing, and the clearing in front of Bobby’s house had another occupant. 

“Made a mistake there,” the earlier lady said, her patchwork poncho doing nothing to obscure the clashing shades of pink. Sam hadn’t known that the same color could clash so badly.

“Now see here, Evil Umbridge,” Dean said, taking aim with a firearm he pulled out of some pocket or other.

“Wouldn’t that be Eviler Umbridge, since the original is, you know, already evil?” Sam asked, taking a few careful steps away from Dean to come at the only visible witch doctor from a different angle. And also to tempt any watching ones into trying their luck.

“You were the one who forgot about the magical creatures,” the witch doctor said, and sliced her obsidian knife down the outside of her arm. “Rise,” she said.

Behind them, both bears began to rise to their feet, the first one turning its head blindly before its nostrils flared and settled squarely on Sam. The second one, which was only half blind, was locked onto Dean, looking as if it were holding a grudge. If that were even possible for an undead bear.

...Never mind, it was certainly possible.

Right as the bear was about to start a second charge, Bobby tore out of the house, holding a bone club in his hand. He went straight for Umbridge, bringing the bone down like a baseball bat across her back. He didn’t have to land a second strike.

It was impossible to miss the reminder that witch doctors were human. Not with said human curled into a ball, begging Bobby to stop. Bobby did, stepping back with a frown. The bears had also stopped, almost as if they had been rebooted, if Sam had to describe it.

That was when Umbridge tried to drive her obsidian knife into Bobby’s thigh. It got a good inch in before Bobby’s reflexes kicked in and sent him jumping back. 

“Damn it,” the older man swore, swinging the femur in Umbridge’s general direction. Umbridge took the chance to run the other direction, disappearing into the second SUV again. Trusting Dean to stay on the bears for the moment, Sam went to join Bobby.

“What’d you find,” he asked, tearing off a strip of his shirt to wrap around the stab.

“Bears can’t be killed,” Bobby said, “They’ll just keep getting up until the people who made them are dead.”

“Any good news?” Sam asked, as one of the bears charged past Dean with enough force to run through the wreck behind him.

“Your feds have disappeared along with a few weapons,” Bobby said, “Probably out hiding in a car somewhere.”

“Along with a pack of witch doctors?” Sam said, “I thought this was supposed to be good news.” Behind them, Dean narrowly dodged the first bear, part of his jacket snagging on its claw. His panting was getting louder as the bears took turns tiring him out.

“The bad news is that if the witch doctors find them, their blood can probably heal the bears’ eyes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I admit I was tempted to end on Sam running into our agents.
> 
> Please let me know what you think, and happy reading. I am honored to hear how much my work is enjoyed.


	9. Chapter 9

“Why did Dean laugh?” Reid asked, once a few prudent minutes had passed. “Neither of them is the type to find pain funny.”

“He laughed at Sam,” Hotch said, “not at us. The Winchesters have long since been documented to recognize they may appear crazy.” And wasn’t that scary.

“You think Sam was trying to comfort us.” Reid said, looking around the room. Aside from the odd symbol on the wall, and the chair, the basement was painfully bland.

“They believe they’ve been cursed to tell the truth,” Hotch said, taking a cautious seat on one of the rolled sleeping bags. “I cannot figure out why they would pick a curse like that.”

“Instead of one that justifies their murders, like a curse that will kill them if they don’t finish off all of the so-called witch doctors?” Reid asked, moving to examine the door.

“Exactly,” Hotch said, “This doesn’t feel like the typical case where a killer’s delusions are subconsciously tailored to justify their work. The Winchesters don’t seem to enjoy any of this.”

“Not to mention,” Reid added, “Sam Winchester seemed fairly concerned with not scaring us, but told the truth anyways. I don’t think they would have picked a truth curse if they thought they had a choice.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen something like this before,” Hotch said, “The Winchester don’t seem to enjoy killing, yet they don’t have any noticeable compulsion to kill either.”

“Their father was a person of interest in several unsolved cases when they were children,” Reid said.

“How bad?” Hotch asked.

“I didn’t read the full file,” Reid started.

“Why not?” Hotch asked, raising a single eyebrow.

“Ran out of coffee then got distracted,” Reid muttered, then continued, “Anyways, from what I recall, the pattern followed a teacher calling in CPS and the father moving to the next town—typically after someone died.”

“Very bad then,” Hotch said.

“What I want to know is how Bobby fits into all of this,” Reid said, “I saw his house, he’s probably lived here since before the Winchesters were born. Not much opportunity to meet the Winchesters.”

“I think we would be better served in the immediate sense by figuring out how much he knows about the Winchesters,” Hotch said, nodding at the two sleeping bags the single man just so happened to have.

“He said he hunts monsters,” Reid said, “I’d say he probably knows more than we do.”

“That’s it,” Hotch said, voice sharp enough that Reid looked up from the door’s lock. “Bobby is around the same age as John Winchester, both of them seem to follow the same esoteric mythology, and Bobby’s mention of a timeout suggested he knew the Winchesters when they were boys.”

“You think he knew Bobby,” Reid said.

“That also,” Hotch said, “but I meant that Bobby has taken on a fatherly role. Which means,” Hotch trailed off.

“That he might try to clean up their messes after all,” Reid said, carefully ignoring Hotch’s wince. Cases where the unsub was acting on a fatherly impulse were one of the few times Hotch allowed himself to show discomfort. And even then, he would rarely allow himself more than a downward twitch of his lip.

“He called you a kid,” Hotch said, voice carefully devoid of inflection as he repeated the insult. “Which in a situation like this means he also sees us as people.”

“For how long,” Reid muttered, pitching his voice too low to carry. Louder, he said, “So do the Winchesters.” 

“For now,” Hotch said, “I know.”

“I need to check something with you,” Reid said, carefully focusing on the lock again. “And I can’t tell you what I think first.”

“What is it?” Hotch asked, eyes burning into the back of Reid’s head.

“Would you risk trying to escape again?” 

“That depends,” Hotch said, “While the third person makes it more risky, did you see where we are?”

“A rural house with none of the power lines found near civilization,” Reid said.

“A salvage yard,” Hotch said, “which probably has at least a few working cars.”

“Is that worth the risk?” Reid pressed.

“Ordinarily I would say not,” Hotch admitted.

“However,” Reid said.

“However,” Hotch said, “We’ve established that the Winchester’s think in terms of preventing escape, not punishing it. This is probably the best chance we’re going to get. If we actually had a way to try.”

“I may have kinda taken care of that already,” Reid said, waggeling a sliver of metal at Hotch.

“Do I want to know why—or how you have a lock pick on you?” Hotch asked.

“How many times have I wound up alone with the unsub?” Reid asked, “Besides, I do magic, remember. Most magician’s pick it up at some point.”

“And how you have it on you?” Hotch asked.

“I may have modified my pants a bit,” Reid said, “Now, do you think we risk it? I don’t hear anything outside.”

“The room outside is for storage,” Hotch said, “We need to see if there are any shoes.”

At his words, Reid’s feet reminded him that cuts and bruises did not just go away. “I don’t think they’ll have shoes in both our sizes.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Hotch asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Reid said.

“Okay, so we’ll see what we can find outside, then wait until it gets late to risk the stairs,” Hotch said, inching the door open.

“Um,” Reid said, “I think it might be safer to go right away.”

Hotch turned to look back at him. “Why?”

“You didn’t see the Winchesters last night,” Reid said, “The fire popping would wake them up. Trying to leave while the house is quiet is just asking to wake them up.”

“So we leave while Bobby is dealing with the Winchesters,” Hotch decided with a nod. “Good thinking.”

Carefully, Reid snuck out of the dungeon, meticulously avoiding the center of the room, sticking to corners and the places where two floorboards came together. A quick look around the room revealed an armory’s worth of weapons, but no ammo. 

Along the floor of the opposite wall they hit the jackpot. Half buried under a pile of shredded rags was a pair of hiking boots. They were stained a dirty red-brown that made Reid hesitant to touch them. Something about the color, or maybe the texture, seemed off, like the blood had been mixed with something else. Holding back a grimace, Reid picked them up.

It was immediately obvious that they would be too small for Hotch. And too big for Reid, for that matter. Not giving himself time to think about it, Reid wadded up some of the rags and stuffed the toes of the shoes.

He was in the middle of lacing his new shoes up, pulling so tightly the laces had to be wrapped around his ankles twice, when a muffled crash had him trying to leave his skin behind. Reid whipped around, absentmindedly noting that his shoes didn’t so much as squeak, and saw Hotch standing next to a pile of waterproofed fabric. He was holding what looked like two bags with a rubber sole on the bottom.

Holding back his breath, Reid waited to see if someone was coming to check, but the house was quiet aside from the thump of a washing machine somewhere above him. After another second, Hotch relaxed, switching a boot so that what had to be some form of fishing gear was held solely in his left hand. Even that small movement had the plastic fabric audibly rubbing against itself.

“I’ll wait until we are outside,” Hotch said, “I’m going to go quickly; if we can get outside we have a decent chance of hiding.”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Reid said.

Since there was no ammo, and if they were close enough to use a knife, the Winchesters would have already caught them, the weapons were ignored. Reid hurried down the eerie little corridor of storage, following close on Hotch’s socked heels. One of them had grown an unignorable hole in the time since Hotch had first lost his shoes.

Thanks to that slight distraction, Reid was slow to realize that Hotch had frozen. Jerking his gaze up, Reid followed suit, freezing as he caught sight of Sam Winchester. And more importantly, the unsheathed knife in his hand. Hotch’s shoes landed dully on the ground as his empty hands flew up.

Even as Reid’s body was backing up, raising his hands and widening his eyes to appear more harmless, he was trying to figure out what had changed. The Winchesters had seemed happy enough to leave them alone for the night. The only possible explanation for Sam’s apparent plan to kill them was Bobby.

The only trouble with that theory was Bobby himself. He didn’t look angry, or even surprised. He looked, in a word, exasperated. And when he spoke it was to de-escalate the situation. Then the lights flickered out and things started making even less sense.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


After Bobby had delivered his ultimatum, the agents had taken a seat, Reid picking a seat that was both in sight of the kitchen’s screen door and out of sight of the younger Winchester. Whatever was happening out front, it couldn’t be worse than being trapped inside with the Winchesters.

Besides, if there was even the smallest chance that the SUVs were Garcia’s doing, then it was best time to leave. Hotch seemed to be of a similar mind, for as soon as Bobby moved back to the front of the house, he was standing up and in a stride that danced the line between walking and running, approached the door.

Reid was right behind him, the two running towards the first car they saw. They didn’t pause until they were well beyond it, hunkering down behind a car nearly out of sight from the house.

Lost for words, Reid could only lift a shoulder as Hotch glanced at him. He had no ideas either. 

Now that they were relatively safe, it was time to find a working car. The one slight flaw in this plan was, well there was more than one. Firstly, the sun had almost set, and it was unfairly dark for a spring evening. Secondly, whatever was happening in front of the house was taking place right next to the only part of the scrapyard not enclosed by a fence. Thirdly, the working cars had not exactly been marked.

“Left or right?” Reid asked, peeking through the closest window for anything they could use. A junkyard was not the best place to go barefoot. 

“Right,” Hotch said, pointing at a row of newer looking trucks that curved around the house. “Those seem like our best bet for finding a car.”

Their progress was painfully slow, Reid doing his best to check every step before Hotch’s progress became painful in the literal sense.

Somehow, they reached the cars, right before true dark swallowed up the last of Reid’s vision. Leaving Hotch to search the car for anything of use, Reid balanced himself on the tire rim, flopped over the roof of the car to get a better vantage point. Not even a second later he was grateful for the support.

“That’s a bear,” he said, causing Hotch to abandon his search in favor of joining him.

“Huh,” Hotch said, once he had caught sight of the corpses, bears and people in outlandish clothing that appeared in the light shining out from the house. 

“That’s impossible,” Reid said, voice cracking.

“Which part?” Hotch asked, voice flat even as he watched what had to be one of the Winchesters run directly at a bear.

“All of it,” Reid said, “Who would knowingly attack a duo of serial killers with trained bears?” 

“Who believes that monsters and witch doctors are real,” Hotch said. Which, well, was a fair point. 

A ray of light bloomed as Bobby ran out the front door, not giving one of the newcomers any warning before attacking. The fight took them into the shadows, and by the time they emerged, Bobby was limping, but the figure in pink wasn’t moving at all.

“Please tell me we didn’t get caught in the middle of a cult war,” Reid said, acutely aware of his missing gun and vest. Conflict between cults was notoriously undocumented. Mostly because there were never any survivors found to interview.

“I don’t see what else that could be,” Hotch said, ducking lower as the sounds reaching them fell into a lull. Immediately Reid turned his attention back to the battle raging in front of them. The newcomers were scattering, disappearing in between cars and rows of scrap metal, leaving the Winchesters alone facing one bear, the second one nowhere to be seen.

“Did you know that most psychologists recognize that exposure to an overwhelmingly absurd situation can drive someone into shock just as easily as a serious injury,” Reid asked, recognising that the words were coming from his own mouth, but not feeling overly concerned with the content.

“We need to move,” Hotch said, apparently not suffering the same affliction. “They’re coming right towards us.”

“We don’t have anywhere to go,” Reid said, thoughts moving imperceptibly faster once he had a defined goal. “I saw two of them scatter in the other direction.”

“We can’t stay here,” Hotch said.

“Anywhere we go we risk running into someone,” Reid countered, nodding towards the now out-of-sight combatants. Even the clearing in front of the house was empty but for corpses.

“We risk being cornered if we hide,” Hotch said, not refuting Reid’s point.

“If we can get to the clearing, I have an idea,” Reid said.

“What?” Hotch asked, pulling Reid down to crouch below the height of the window.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


As any great general or tactician knows, plans are wonderful concepts that fold like paper as soon as they are put into practice. In this case, the plan ended earlier than expected. Significantly earlier. 

Not even a minute after outlining his plan, an older man wearing a hideous poncho sprinted past the car on the other side, running so fast that when his foot caught on something he continued to skid along the ground for a good five feet before stopping. His poncho had been torn to shreds by the slide, but even with only a car between them, Reid didn’t smell the iron tang he’d come to associate with injuries.

Why the man had been running was also immediately obvious, as a taller shape that could only be Dean Winchester nearly tripped over the first man. In case the odds of the all three parties winding up at the same spot was not already ridiculously low—around seven percent and only growing to twenty percent if they started to wander around, behind Winchester came a bear.

It was moving slowly, one leg not touching the ground while its head turned wildly from side to side in a way most unlike a predator. Then something on the bear’s face wetly reflected the light from the house, and Reid realised the bear was at least half blind. He didn’t want to think about how absolutely insane someone had to be to willingly get close enough to the bear to manage that.

“Say goodbye, shithead,” Winchester said, ignoring the bear entirely as one hand raised something metal to a spot just below his shoulder. It was a good spot, practically speaking, giving him enough space to bring the knife down with the required momentum while not giving the other man time to block it. Reid did not like the implications of that. None of the Winchester’s known victims had been killed by such an efficient attack.

Unsurprisingly, the attack worked, and then it was just Dean and the bear on the other side of the old car. The bear was clearly injured, its woofs ending with a wet rattle. Still, it was doggedly making a laborious path towards Winchester who did not look frightened so much as impatient.

“Come on, come on, I killed your creators, it’s time to die,” he was muttering, “just for once, can’t my life be easy, I mean you’re already dead, do I really have to kill you again for it to stick?”

Reid was not going to touch that until Winchester was safely behind bars, and he had his teams around him. With the glassy eyed calm that had characterized the past quarter hour, Reid watched as Dean Winchester charged the bear, what looked like an antler in his hand. Two seconds later the antler was on the ground, and Winchester was diving behind the closest car as the bear charged.

Reid’s relief at said car behind directly opposite them was instantly flipped when Winchester popped back up, and several bullets came directly their way. The roof where they’d been laying was hit, and the window above them cracked. 

The bear was dead. The agents were not. That was good. Reid was not good right now. He couldn’t think, why couldn’t he think right now. Hotch shoved a hand over his mouth then, and Reid was ready to tear it off when something penetrated the panic.

Hotch wasn’t looking at him. He wasn’t checking to make sure Reid understood that he was being too loud, or looking to see if he was okay. He was laying next to Reid, watching Winchester.

Winchester was looking directly at them. Reid stopped breathing, Hotch doing the same, and waited. They were laying flat on their bellies, deep in the shadows under the car, there was no way he could see them. Then again, after what he’d just seen, Reid wasn’t putting too much stock into reason at the moment.

“Fucking witch doctors,” Dean finally swore, swapping in a full clip of ammo. Then he stalked further into the junkyard, passing through the cars not thirty feet away from Reid and Hotch. Neither of them moved, and it was only after even the faintest sounds were out of earshot that Hotch lowered his hand.

“Are you alright?” Hotch asked. He didn’t whisper, instead lowering his tone to ensure the sound wouldn’t attract unwanted attention.

“I think so,” Reid said, “And anyways, I found you a pair of shoes.” The joke was morbid, and had Hotch looking at him out of the corner of his eye, but the uncharacteristic humor helped. Staying low, and giving the probably-dead bear a wide berth, Reid made his way towards Winchester’s latest victim.

A press of two fingers against the throat confirmed the man was dead. Going against years of training, Reid ignored the protocol for dealing with a crime scene, and began to unlace the man’s boots. 

He was in luck, the shoes fit Hotch. They began to make their way towards the clearing, before one of the so-called witch doctors found their man. It was faster this time around, now that Reid didn’t have to search the ground every step of the way. 

That said, they were not going fast enough. Or alternatively they were going too fast. Either way, once they were just shy of reaching the clearing, yet another person appeared, walking directly towards where they were hiding, like magic.

This close to the house, two things were different. First Reid could hear the unmistakable sound of an angry bear. Secondly, the ambient light was bright enough for him to see yet another obsidian knife in the young woman’s hand. That brought the Aztec themes from a stylistic choice to an obsession.

“I found you,” the girl said, her knife seeming to turn on its own to point directly at them.

“You did,” Hotch said, stepping out of the shadows of the closest truck. “Please drop the knife.”

“What?” The girl said, and as she bared her teeth in a smile, Reid noticed that her teeth were tinted red with blood. He didn’t think it was hers.

“Drop the knife,” Hotch said. “This is your last chance.”

“No,” the girl said, an inaudible scoff roughening her dismissal.

Hotch didn’t bother replying, instead loosening his tie and sliding it over his head. The witch doctor didn’t take the opening, instead standing there with a grin.

“Are you trying to make it easier for me to cut your throat?” she asked. “Why?”

Not quite delusional then, if she was able to recognize the oddity while likely high on adrenaline. Or perhaps she was the Winchesters' sort of delusional.

“No,” Hotch said, wrapping the tie around his hand, looping it over and over until his palm was fully covered, and the tails were too short to wrap again.

The girl didn’t get any more explanation than that, before Hotch was moving forward, wrapped hand extended to intercept the knife. 

The move wasn’t as risky as one would expect, between the imperfect nature of a stone knife and the fact that Hotch wasn’t fool enough to push his palm against a blade when he could just as easily pull it past him, the girl was disarmed before she knew it.

“Does that count as dropping my knife?” she asked, taking a few careful steps back. 

“On your stomach, hands behind your head,” Reid said, refusing to let the absolute callousness of her question affect him. The girl did what he said.

Setting the knife down on the seat of the nearest truck, Hotch unwrapped the tie, and, after a moment of silent contemplation, began to tie her wrists behind her. Once she was restrained and relieved of her keys and anything else she could use to saw through the bindings, Hotch turned back to Reid.

“Ready?”

  
  


~~~~~~~~

  
  


Getting into the witch doctors’ SUV had been significantly easier than Reid had assumed when he made the plan. Which was fortunate, since it had been a while since he’d last tried to hotwire a car.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, he started the car, Hotch locking the doors almost before he had done so. From what Reid remembered from his blindfolded ride up to the house, they had about half a mile of twisting road to cover before they reached a smoother, and therefore public, road.

Throwing subtlety to the wind, Reid took the car around the corner fast enough to have its brakes squealing. Then the next one, and then he was in another open space, what must have been the parking lot. Reid hit the brakes.

A bear was standing in the middle of the road, pacing back and forth. On one side of it, Bobby was laying on the ground, not moving. On the other, Sam Winchester was half hidden behind a tire barrier, ducking back every time the bear turned to pace back towards him.

The arrival of the car ended the short lived stalemate, only in part because of them. The other part was Bobby daring to lift his head off the ground. The bear did not like that.

Ignoring Winchester, the bear turned to look directly at Bobby. Reid had read enough on animal behavior to know what it meant when a bear lowered its head like that. Not giving himself time to think about it, he hit the gas.

The car hit the bear broadside, and Reid had just enough time to be grateful Hotch had also put on his seatbelt before the airbag deployed. He hadn’t had enough time to build up that much speed, but any sudden stop was dangerous.

Not giving the pain a chance to catch up with them, Reid and Hotch were out of the car and running back for the other SUV while Sam was still checking Bobby over. The bear was undeniably dead, with bits of bone and organs poking through its fur like a collapsed tent.

It wasn’t until Reid had the door open that he realized that he didn’t have the keys to the other SUV. Hotch must have noticed that around the same time as him, as when Reid looked up, he was looking at the Winchester’s Impala and frowning.

“Would that be easier to start?” Hotch asked, already climbing out.

Reid didn’t answer, the time they’d wasted trying to use the SUV suddenly seeming a bit more valuable in retrospect.

The sound of their leaving had attracted the eldest Winchester. He was standing on the far side of the clearing, his firearm out. Reid stopped midway to the old car.

“Touch my car, and I might kill you,” Dean said.

“You’re serious,” said Sam, from Reid’s other side, standing next to a very pale Bobby in the middle of the road out. 

“Deadly,” said Dean Winchester.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy, this chapter was an absolute blast to write.
> 
> As always, comments are appreciated and used as fuel to help motivate myself to write. Please let me know what parts you like, or what you think will happen next.
> 
> Happy Reading!


	10. Chapter 10

When Officer Stark returned from her phone call, it was with a quiet tension that had Prentiss silently offering her a mug of police station coffee. She took it, a tremor in her hands that hadn’t been there before. Garcia made the valiant decision to hide behind the nearest potted plant until the awkward emotions left. Learning your niece was missing because she showed up on a list of potential victims was one of the worst ways Garcia could think of.

“Avery has been missing for four days now,” Officer Stark said. Her voice had the emotionless tone of somebody who was waiting for reality to catch up to them.

“Do you know where she was seen last,” Prentis asked, subtly gesturing towards a pair of chairs in a quiet corner of the station.

“My sister said she was out riding, and didn’t come home.”

“Was this normal for Avery?” Prentiss asked.

“You said was,” Officer Stark said, “do you, do you think she’s dead?”

“No,” Prentiss said, “I-we think that she is alive.”

“Then why did you say that?” Officer Stark asked, balanced on the edge of her seat.

That was something Garcia was familiar with. Not everybody responded to grief the same way. People, particularly those in law enforcement, were just as likely to grow cold or angry as they were to go sad or numb. On the other hand, trying to speak with hostile relatives was a double edged sword. They were less likely to talk, however, if they did they were far more honest about any negative trait the victim might have. And what did it say that Garcia knew that?

“In my experience, people like Avery will make sure someone knows where they are and where they are going after something like this,” Prentiss said. “If she doesn’t already do this.” Garcia didn’t know if that was the true reason, but either way it let Officer Stark relax into her seat.

“She doesn’t,” Officer Stark said, “She knows she’s supposed to be home by dinner, but she’ll take her horse and a packed lunch and disappear for the day.”

“Did anyone find the horse?” Prentiss asked, glancing over to Garcia.

“I don’t think so,” Officer Stark said, “but Mary said there were volunteers riding the trails Avery was allowed on.”

Garcia took that as her cue to open her newest search software. It was something she was rather proud of. A few weeks back, she and Reid had sat down and gone over how he created a geographic profile. The parameters for urban searches were still under construction, but her forest search and rescue was well into the testing phase.

That meant that once she input the necessary maps, roads closed due to weather, and Avery’s expected departure times she was able to narrow down where a car could get close enough to ambush her. She sent the information to the volunteers along with her number in case they found something.

By the time she was done, Prentiss was also wrapping up. Officer Stark was absently toying with her coffee, eyes flitting to the door every few minutes. Beyond said door, Farlet was still handcuffed to the open police cruiser door. The spring air was crisp enough that the decision to leave her without the benefit of climate control had to be intentional. The devil on Garcia’s shoulder approved. 

Letting Officer Stark make a few more phone calls, ones that started with “Why didn’t you tell me,” Prentiss came to stand behind Garcia. A few minutes later, Rossi and Morgan joined them.

“Do we think Farlet is responsible for Avery’s disappearance?” Morgan asked, arms folded.

“I believe so,” Rossi said, “We profiled Farlet as selecting boys because they were easier targets, a lone girl would fit the victimology just as well.”

“That’s another thing,” Morgan said, “I was told Farlet went out of town almost every weekend.”

“You think there are more children,” Rossi said.

“There are no signs that this is the first time she’s taken two children at once,” Morgan said. “Or even any suggestion that Jake was the first one. I spoke with the coroner earlier. There were no hesitation marks, and the cuts were almost inhuman in how well each side mirrored the other.”

“Garcia,” Prentiss said, “Would you expand your search for any missing children, ages five to fifteen, that disappeared on a weekend in the past er-”

“Four years,” Rossi said, “to start.”

“Country wide or,” Garcia trailed off.

“Within a day and a half of driving,” Prentiss said.

“On it,” Garcia said, hand reaching out to end the call. She was spared the awkwardness of having to pull her hand back from the nonexistent button by her phone ringing.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hi,” an unfamiliar voice said, “I was told to call this number if we found Avery.”

“Yes,” Garcia said, switching him over to speaker. “Did you find her?”

“No,” the caller said, “but we did find her horse. Or what’s left of it.”

“What do you mean?” Rossi said, leaning over Garcia’s shoulder.

“I don’t know how to describe it,” was the answer, “there’s blood everywhere. And someone used it to paint some kind of symbols on the trees. What’s going on?”

“We’ll send someone down to explain everything,” Prentiss said, “Now, I need you to make sure that nobody touches anything, and we’ll need to talk to whoever first found the horse.”

“When should we expect you?”

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


“It was Farlet,” Morgan said.

“How do you know?” Rossi asked, not challenging the statement, but gathering the details in preparation for the paperwork Garcia knew would follow such a personal case.

“I never thought I’d say this,” Prentiss said, “but the bloodbath didn’t have enough blood. There was about half a gallon missing.” Garcia wrinkled her nose. However, any information on why the Winchesters picked Farlet could help find Hotch and Reid so her disgust went unvocalized.

“She collected horse blood?” Morgan clarified, his disgust clearly vocalized.

“So it appears,” Prentiss said, “Also, some of the symbols she drew look like the ones in the Winchesters crime scene photos.”

“It’s not just children,” Rossi said, his words carrying across the nearly empty room. Almost everyone was out, searching all of Farlet’s many properties for Avery. As a relative, Officer Stark had been asked to stay behind.

“Why do you think that?” Prentiss asked, Morgan turning to look at Rossi over her shoulder. 

“Because she took the time to collect horse blood,” Rossi said, “This is while she has to control Avery. What would make her willing to risk losing her preferred victim?”

“You think she prioritizes the quantity of blood over-” Morgan cut himself off. 

“Over the so-called quality of the blood,” Rossi finished. “That would explain the amount of blood we found in her fridge. Testing will still take a few days, but I suspect that we will find blood from several different people.”

“That doesn’t fit with what she did to the other boys,” Prentiss said, “If Farlet wanted quantity, they would have died from blood loss, not exposure.”

“So what,” Morgan started, “Farlet flip-flopped between wanting the blood of innocents and wanting as much blood as possible.” A thrust of his chin showed how likely he found that scenario.

“What if it’s like Mirror Knight’s Quest?” Garcia asked, looking at one of the symbols Farlet had painted in blood.

“Like what?” Prentiss asked.

“Mirror Knight’s Quest,” Rossi said, “It’s an online role playing game.”

“You are going to tell me how you know that,” Garcia said, “but, yes, it’s a game where the even sorcerer uses blood magic—and the point is, his magic comes from the spilling of blood, not just the blood he has on hand or and different types of blood have different magical powers.” Garcia paused. “Just thinking about that feels all icky now.”

“Hey, hey, hey, Baby Girl,” Morgan said, “don’t think about that.”

“How can I not think about it,” Garcia said. Rossi placed a hand on her shoulder and there was a beat of silence as they waited for Hotch to join the conversation.

“I know,” Prentiss said, “But there is nothing else we can do, and Avery needs our help now.”

“I know that,” Garcia said, “Trust me, I know that.” In some ways her team was lucky, they didn’t have to scroll through pages and pages of smiling photos of children in between the photos of their brutal murder.

“Well,” Prentiss said, brushing invisible lint off of her slacks, “I’m going to see what Farlet has to say.” 

“I’ll join you,” Morgan immediately offered.

Garcia began expanding her search.

~~~~~

At some point Farlet had been moved indoors, to the same office Garcia had been in earlier. Ordinarily this would not have concerned Garcia, however, knowing that Farlet might be sharing the information that would save Hotch and Reid when Garcia couldn’t hear it was irritating.

“Did you have any luck tracking the Winchesters’ car?” Rossi asked. Apparently Farlet had refused to say a word, leaving the earpiece Rossi wore somewhat redundant.

“Do you know how many people are out showing off their cars every weekend,” Garcia said, “I’ve found a possible match in every major city I contacted.”

“Did you center the search around Westerlies or the Samsons?” Rossi asked.

“Both,” Garcia said, “With the priority on the one from the Samsons. Oh, have you heard anything more from them?”

“I did,” Rossi said, drawing the word out. “What do you think they found in their kitchen?”

“Do I want to know?” Garcia asked, focusing on her screen. She’d set up a rudimentary system so volunteers could mark the locations they’d already searched. All of Farlet’s known properties had already been searched, and more notifications were coming in from public and government lands.

“They found a coffee mug with Reid’s DNA,” Rossi said.

“Okay,” Garcia said, waiting for him to elaborate.

“Think about it,” Rossi said, “You’re on the run from the FBI, with two captives who just tried to escape. Now I know Reid wouldn’t have wasted time making himself a cup of coffee so we can conclude that the Winchesters made him coffee.”

“So what,” Garcia said, “You’re saying that they had the basic human decency to spare him a caffeine headache?”

“That also,” Rossi said, “but more importantly, think about when they made the coffee. After they tried to escape. Morgan thought they might have just accepted it as something those who don’t know about the supernatural would try. This tells us that they were calm and still empathizing with Reid afterwards. It means they won’t hurt them.”

“But they already hurt them,” Garcia said, “At the house, I was there when you found the signs of a struggle.”

“Well, yes,” Rossi admitted, “but think about it,” Rossi focused on her, watching to see how she reacted, “a struggle comes from two people fighting, if Hotch and Reid didn’t fight, the Winchesters wouldn’t either.”

“Why didn’t they fight,” Garcia said, “even I know that letting them take you to a secondary location is always going to-to”

“The Samsons,” Rossi said, “They were probably trying to protect them, keep the Winchesters distracted.”

“You swear that you think they’re okay,” Garcia asked, grabbing his wrist as he stopped leaning against the table.

“I swear,” Rossi said, “Based on everything we know,” he stopped then, tapping his earpiece with a frown, then again with wide eyes.

“Garcia, is something wrong with your internet?” he asked.

Garcia checked, testing everything. “It’s working fine,” she said.

“I’m not hearing anything,” Rossi said, turning to head directly for the office. “Not even breathing.”

Garcia’s stuff didn’t break. Rossi knew that. Before Garcia had finished rising from her chair, Rossi was off, hurrying towards the office. Garcia followed him, catching up as Rossi paused outside to listen.

Right as she reached the door, it shook on its hinges, like something heavy had been thrown against it. That seemed to decide it for Rossi, as he waved her to stand on the opposite side of the door as himself. Gun drawn, he reached out and twisted the handle, pulling the door out. Coincidentally, it opened onto Garcia, both protecting her from, and blocking her sight of, the scene inside.

The door had to have been thicker than it appeared, as once opened, the sounds of fighting were unmistakable. Edging around the corner of the door, Garcia saw Prentiss and Morgan standing, a bit bloodied but movinging easily as Farlet stood there with a nasty smirk. Her hands were bloody, the manicured nails perfecting matching a scratch on Morgan’s forearm.

“Put your hands behind your head,” Rossi ordered.

Still smiling, Farlet did so, looking perfectly at ease.

“On your knees,” Rossi said, Morgan moving in to add a knee to her back.

“What did you think you would gain from attacking us,” Morgan demanded to know.

Farlet didn’t say anything, just raising an eyebrow as she twisted her head to stare directly at Rossi and Garcia.

“You thought you’d get magic powers didn’t you,” Prentiss said, one hand covering a scratch along the top of her shoulder. “That’s why you attacked us.”

Farlet nodded, and her grin widened.

Garcia felt her nails dig into her palms, the jagged edge of the nail she broke earlier cutting through the skin. Garcia had seen her fair share and then some when it came to the evils of mankind, but rarely when it happened to her team right in front of her. 

It was surprisingly easy to step forward, teeth bared between brightly painted lips, and crouch down so she could see every minute twitch of Farlet’s face. Morgan looked like he wanted to intervene, but a shake of Prentiss’ head held him still.

“You are despicable,” Garcia said, “I can’t even count the number of people you’ve killed and for what, some magic powers that you use to hurt even more people. Let me tell you something.” Garcia looked at Farlet, recognized the absolute indifference of the woman, and felt her nails dig further into her palms. A few drops of blood fell to the floor.

“You cannot do magic,” Garcia said, putting every bit of pain, and rage, and fear for her friends into those four words. 

Farlet must have understood some of that, as her grin faltered, and Morgan shifted as she leaned against him to get further away from Garcia. 

“That’s not true,” Farlet said, continuing on in another language. It sounded like a chant, but the pitch rose higher and higher as nothing happened. Just as it felt like her voice had to give out, she stopped, her air of amusement turned dark. Her mouth clamped shut.

Rossi silently guided Garcia back into the main hall, his arm warm around her back. Instead of guiding her back to her chair, he led her to the end of the table still holding the food from the previous day. None of them were appetizing, but Garcia understood the offering for what it was.  _ Eat, and I won’t ask you to talk. _

She took a granola bar, shredding the wrapper as she tried to make herself eat. Hotch and Reid were missing, Avery could very well be dead, and their only lead was crazier than the Joker. It was the simple fact that keeping at the top of her game was the best thing she could do, the only thing, that allowed her to take a bite.

Next to her, Rossi did the same, eyes looking somewhere into the distance as a hand came up to touch his earpiece. He didn’t share what he was hearing, so Garcia didn’t ask. Abandoning the last bite of her bar, she returned to her workspace, after a detour to care for her hands, pulling up the map to see if any more areas could be crossed off.

There were, along with something that had Garcia waving for Officer Stark, who looked as if she were wrapping up another phone call, to join her. She did, and Garcia zoomed in on part of the map.

“Is there anything in this area?” she asked, circling an innocuous piece of map. 

“Not much, just a few houses I think,” Officer Stark said, “Why do you want to know?”

“You see these?” Garcia asked, gesturing at the green flags that speckled the map, “They represent a place that had already been searched and called in as empty.”

“Okay,” Officer Stark said, “Then why is that area blank?” She pointed at the area Garcia had pointed out.

“That’s what I want to know,” Garcia said, “It’s close enough to Farlet’s house that it should have been searched before some of the more distant places, but there’s nothing there. Not a single person who searched there has checked in.”

“Wouldn’t somebody have noticed people were missing,” Officer Stark asked.

“Not if they weren’t missing,” Garcia said.

“What’s this about people missing?” Rossi asked from behind Garcia.

“Uh,” Garcia said, “Remember how the call dropped when you went after Farlet?”

“You think that was purposeful?” Rossi said, testing the idea.

“We need to send our people in,” Officer Stark said, “If Avery is there, if there’s any chance, we need to find her.”

“Already on it,” Garcia said, “I’m sending out a mass notification that communications are down and requests for volunteers to leave the area after searching so they can update us.”

“I’ll call Will’s father,” Officer Stark said, “See if he is willing to let us ask Will a few more questions about where Avery might be.”

“Good idea,” Rossi said, waving for her to go ahead. That had Garcia perking up and waiting for him to speak. Ordinarily, victims and their families were to be kept out of the investigation as much as possible, to prevent unpleasantness such as a family member getting charged for assaulting the unsub. Something was distracting him.

“What’s going on?” she asked, sorting a few more notifications as she waited for Rossi to speak.

“I think Morgan and Prentiss might have to explain it,” Rossi said, and sure enough, the office door opened again, revealing a red-faced Farlet as the agents entered the main room.

Contrary to what Garci would have expected after such an interrogation, both Morgan and Prentiss left the room looking hopeful, if not happy. 

“What set her off?” Rossi asked, as soon as he could speak without yelling across the room. 

“We asked her how the Winchesters would have known about her,” Prentiss said. “Turns out she knows the Winchesters by name but not by face.”

“Isn’t it usually the other way around?” Garcia asked. Even as she spoke she googled the brother’s names. Nothing but firearm experts named Sam or Dean came up. 

“That’s what we noticed,” Prentiss said, “Turns out the Winchester’s are very well known as  _ hunters. _ ”

“There’s a whole community of crazy,” Garcia said, “cause if so, give me the details and I’ll scour every website accessed in America to find them.”

“Are you sure you want to hear this?” Morgan asked, nodding at the mangled horse carcass still open on her laptop. 

“It’s Reid,” Garcia said, “and Hotch. I want to know.” 

“I understand,” Moran said, yet he shifted so he wasn't quite speaking to her. “Farlet’s delusion appears to be a sick approximation of the Aztec and Mayan myths, with blood sacrifices giving her godly powers.”

“A belief that she has godlike powers without any signs of a god complex,” Rossi said, “That’s a new one.”

“No god complex,” Morgan said, “How? She thinks she should have the decision over life and death when it comes to these kids. People.”

“Did she say that?” Rossi asked.

Prentiss spoke over him, “No, she thinks she deserves magic powers and she doesn’t  _ care _ what she has to do to get them.”

“She didn’t wait around to witness Joshua’s death, remember,” Rossi said. “So she doesn’t feel like she needs the power of life and death.”

“How does this relate to the Winchesters,” Garcia asked, the butterflies in her stomach growing more agitated with every minute of waiting.

“She implied that hunters are people who, well, hunt down monsters and wannabe gods like her,” Prentiss said, looking directly at Garcia as she spoke, “She said that they ‘think they’re like a pair of cowboys. They make a mess, rescue the pretty lady and ride off into the sunset without cleaning up.’”

“So it’s a safe guess that she actually knew them,” Rossi said, “Did she actually say ‘rescue’ because that is rather self aware for a-” he let the sentence trail off without sharing what exactly he thought Farlet was.

“She knew,” Morgan said, “She just didn’t care.”

“She cared about the wrong thing,” Prentiss said, “think about it, she was upset that they made a  _ mess. _ ”

“She was obsessively tidy when collecting the blood, lines were parallel and the boys’ shirts were found neatly folded,” Rossi said.

“There weren’t any traces of blood in her car despite her having slaughtered a horse and having to control Avery afterwards,” Morgan said, “That means she had to have really tried to avoid getting any blood on her.” He mimed stabbing something, holding his hand out from his body.

“She would make—oh God—all the kids wash their hands before and after giving tours of the museum,” Officer Stark said, again ducking back as they turned their attention to her.

“She’s either a germaphobe or obsessively neat,” Rossi said.

“It has been noticed that people who are regularly involved in violent situations are more likely to be fastidious in their appearance and the cleanliness of their houses,” Prentiss said. Garcia was careful not to look at Prentisses perfectly ironed slacks. There was no way those had survived travel that way.

“She killed a horse,” Morgan said, “and tried to bite me. She’s not a germaphobe.”

“But she does need things to be neat,” Rossi said, “Officer Stark, are any of the buildings here new, or well maintained?” He pointed at the empty space on Garcia’s map.

“That one used to be a factory,” Officer Stark said, “Made some of the chemicals used in bleach, I think. And that one might be a workshop, the McAdams use it to fix up old cars. I don’t know about any of the others.”

“Bleach is promising,” Rossi said, “Garcia, any luck figuring out the communication issues.”

“Nothing,” she said, “I know how networks function, but this isn’t like that, it’s like the whole area just fell off the face of the earth, in what looks like a perfect circle.”

“Centered on?” Prentiss asked.

“The old factory,” Garcia said.

“Right,” Rossi said, “Get ready to go. Garcia, Officer Stark, I need to to stay here, to make sure someone knows what’s going on.”

“Should I ask Mr. Larson and Will to wait until this is over?” Officer Stark checked.

“Probably a good idea,” Rossi said, and headed for the door. And promptly walked into the door as it failed to give way as he pushed.

“You have to pull it,” Officer Stark said, nodding at the crooked push sign. 

“Right,” Rossi said. The second time he managed to open the door without any problems.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


A good quarter of an hour had passed before Morgan failed to respond to one of Garcia’s texts. She’d been sending one every few minutes, just in case it was only audio based communication that failed.

“They’re there,” Garcia told Officer Stark. The other woman nodded and went back to pacing. From the brief phone calls she’d been privy to, it sounded as if Officer Stark was trying to find a horse for Avery. One that looked exactly the same as the one Avery had grown up with.

Welcoming the distraction, Garcia pulled up the photos of the horse again, and started cleaning it up, focusing on the head and speckled rump. Cleaning up the image also cleaned up the wounds. Initially, Garcia ignored them as best she could, but a particularly long slice up along the horses cheek caught her attention.

Garcia might have made a point of avoiding the gore when possible, but she did know the very basics of blood spatter analysis from sheer exposure. “Officer Stark,” she called, sinking into her chair.

“What is it?” Officer Stark asked, moving to look over the back of her chair.

“You said that Farlel’s car was clean, right?”

“Not a drop of blood,” she said.

“Does she only have the one car?” Garcia asked.

“As far as the tax collectors and I know,” Officer Stark said.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Garcia said, “Look at this. It’s an incised wound—a slash wound—not a stab wound.”

“What’s the difference?” Officer Stark asked.

“Stab wounds bleed less, but an incision like one of these,” Garcia gestured at the horse, “Would send blood everywhere, probably even more so since a horse’s heart is stronger than a humans.”

“So,” Officer Stark said, sounding as if she’d already put the pieces together and was desperately hoping she was wrong.

“So,” Garcia said, “She wasn’t driving her car when she took Avery.”

“Can you find what car she was driving?” Officer Stark asked, her tone reminding Garcia that this was her niece they were talking about.

“The volunteers probably disrupted any tire tracks we might have found,” Garcia said, “Do you know what happened to her keys?”

“Over there,” Officer Stark said, nodding towards what used to be the food prep part of the town hall. Currently it was the evidence locker, as no one had wanted to waste manpower transporting everything when they could be searching. The fridge had been filled with the blood found at Farlet’s house, the counters were covered with evidence baggies and a printer was balanced at the end, the tray filled with crime scene photos. 

The keys were missing, probably taken in case they were needed, but Officer Stark found a photo of the keys, which was good enough.

“There’re two car keys unaccounted for,” Officer Stark said, pointing them out. Without having the physical keys, Garcia couldn’t pinpoint the exact make and model, but she found the second one would have belonged to a van.

“I’m going to go ask Farlet a few questions,” Garcia said, trying to subtly sling a plush unicorn purse over one shoulder.

“Should I join you?” Officer Stark asked, folding her arms across her chest.

“Only if I call for you,” Garcia said. “Which I probably won't.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Officer Stark said, and went back to watching the clock as Garcia opened the office door.

It wasn’t like prison was all that bad, Garcia reasoned. Besides, her skills had kept her out once, they could probably justify a second time. 

On that not particularly inspiring note, Garcia broke several regulations and entered the holding room of a known serial killer. Farlet was handcuffed to the table and the way she was sitting hinted that her ankles had been cuffed as well. Farlet sneered, but didn’t say anything.

Taking a deep breath, Garcia sat down, keeping well back from the desk. “Did you know you have three car keys but legally only one car?” Garcia asked.

Farlet bared her teeth in a smile.

“But that’s not what I’m here about,” Garcia continued, “I just want to know where you parked the van.”

“Why, not satisfied with cutting off my magic?” Farlet spat.

Garcia allowed herself to blink, once. “Nope,” she said, to buy time. Why would Farlet think she had cut off her magic?

Just as the silence was starting to stretch too long, Garcia decided to wing it. Whatever it was, it had convinced Farlet to talk to her. “Where’s your van?”

“Why should I tell you?” Farlet asked.

That Garcia could handle. “Did you know it’s illegal for agents to threaten people?” she asked.

Farlet remained silent.

“There’s a few other professions where that holds true. Police officers, medical workers, developers,” Garcia said, “However, some jobs, like technical analyst, don’t have that. And guess what?”

“You’re not a real agent,” Farlet said, rolling her eyes.

“Exactly,” Garcia said, forcing her smile to widen even when there was nothing worth smiling about going one. “Which means, I can do this.”

Reaching into her purse, Garcia pulled out a canister of extra-strength bear spray. 

Farlet stopped smiling.

“Keep away from children, not not eat, blah blah blah,” Garcia read off the back, “Oh, here it is. If any spray reaches delicate tissues such as the eyes and mouth, call poison control immediately. And of course the company is not responsible for any damage caused by usage of this product.”

Farlet started smiling again.

Garcia stopped playing nice.

~~~~~~~~

Five minutes later, Garcia walked out, unopened bear spray stowed safely in her purse. “The van’s parked behind the Davis house,” she said. “She left Avery inside right before she went to take Will.”

“How’d you find that out?” Officer Stark asked.

“Tried a few things,” Garcia said, “The trick turned out to be a claim that the blood samples we took are enough for us to take away her magic permanently.” And the truth truly was stranger than fiction.

“But the Davis house?” Officer Stark said, “They’re the parents.”

“The perfect place to hide something,” Garcia said, “No one would want to remind them.”

“I still don’t get it,” Officer Stark said, “She seemed so normal. I felt bad for her a few times.”

“That’s the thing,” Garcia said, “Monsters don’t exist, evil is always found in people who look just like you and me.”

“It would be nice that way,” Officer Stark said.

“If they looked like us in particular?” Garcia asked.

“No, if they looked like monsters,” Officer Stark said, “That would make our life so much simpler.”

“It would,” Garcia agreed.

~~~~~~~~

  
  


On the way there, Garcia called Hotch to let him know she’d found the kid. After a few seconds of listening to the phone ring, she hung up and opened Morgan’s contact info.

“I think we found Avery,” she said, “We’re on our way to the Davis residence right now.”

“We?” Morgan asked, after pausing to order everyone into the cars.

“Officer Stark and I,” Garcia said, letting her voice taper off, “It wasn’t like I could just leave her alone?”

“I’m not going to try to stop you,” Morgan said, “Or ask how you got this information, but please, if you can wait until we catch up with you. Farlet was using the factory alright, but for storing herbs, and there were several nasty traps with contact poisons.

“We’re alright,” he added preemptively.

“Of course you are,” Garcia said, but eased off a little on the gas anyways. “Can you get there in ten?”

“You know I can.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The van was easy enough to find, so long as somebody knew it was there. After Morgan had taken the expedient path of simply breaking the lock off, Avery was revealed, a little hungry and dirty, but strong enough to send Officer Stark stumbling back a few steps as they met for a hug.

Back at the town hall, Avery’s parents were waiting, the mother at the car’s door before they had even pulled to a stop. It was a part of the cases that Garacia did not often see. She understood why Rossi wanted to remember the people he’d saved.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That night, Farlet woke up, screaming about bears and killing them all. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The night after that, Avery went to meet her new horse. Officer Stark suggested she name it Penelope.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next night was quiet, leading into a quiet morning as the agents began to prepare for the trip home. It was around then that Garcia’s phone rang. She answered it, offering a terse hello as she prepared a few of the bugs she liked to keep on hand for telemarketers.

“Hello, this is Dean Winchester. I want to make a deal.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bear spray and undead bears. I couldn’t help it. After all, we all know Garcia could have handled the mess at Singer’s Salvage single handedly. As always, I greatly appreciate your comments and critiques on what parts you liked or not are used to tweak future chapters.


End file.
